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April 27th, 2005 11:53 am
Records Show DeLay, Lobbyist Daily Contact
By Sharon Theimer / Associated Press
WASHINGTON - Over two years, Rep. Tom DeLay had at least two dozen discussions with a lobbyist working to keep a U.S. territory's factories free from new labor laws. The lobbyist contributed to the House leader's campaigns and arranged travel for him.
Records show that DeLay's staff spoke with the lobbyist, Jack Abramoff, or his team almost daily during this period.
DeLay's office kept Abramoff, now under criminal investigation, routinely apprised of congressional efforts to block new regulations on his client, the Northern Mariana Islands.
Questions have been raised about whether Abramoff himself paid for some of DeLay's foreign trips in violation of House rules. DeLay maintains they were properly financed by trip sponsors.
Abramoff's firm reported it drafted legislative materials for DeLay, and Abramoff boasted to island leaders he could use his close ties to Republican leaders to block legislation from receiving a House vote.
"Getting the bill off the schedule for next week, however, should enable us to use our connections within the Leadership to ensure that ... it will not come to the floor," Abramoff wrote the islands in September 1996.
The Northern Marianas billing and correspondence records of Abramoff's former lobbying firm, Preston Gates, were obtained by The Associated Press under an open records request approved by the island government.
They provide a day-by-day account of the lobbyist's campaign of fundraising, trip-providing and schmoozing with lawmakers in both parties aimed at, among other things, getting Congress to block Clinton administration efforts to regulate alleged "sweatshop" garment factories in the Northern Marianas. Those rules were never enacted.
DeLay, R-Texas, is now the House majority leader, but back then he was the No. 3 official in the House. His job as majority whip involved counting the way lawmakers intended to vote, which often influenced when legislation would come to a vote in the GOP-led Congress. Though Abramoff billed the island for contacts with dozens of lawmakers, DeLay's office was among the most frequently listed in the billing records.
An Abramoff spokesman said Tuesday the records confirm the lobbyist earned his pay. "Mr. Abramoff and his team worked tirelessly on behalf of the Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas Islands and achieved tremendous results," Andrew Blum said.
DeLay's office said Tuesday he made decisions on the merits, not because of Abramoff's largesse or lobbying. "People know that Majority Leader DeLay stands on principles and bases his voting decisions on the merits," spokesman Dan Allen said.
The documents show that Abramoff's firm and the House Ethics Committee began having concerns as early as 1996 about Abramoff's arrangement of numerous trips for congressional members to the Pacific islands and how they were being paid for.
Abramoff billed numerous trips to his personal credit card or the firm, the records state, and then he later pressed the islands to reimburse him to avoid violating the new ban on lobbyists giving gifts to House members.
"I am under pressure here since the firm, under the gift ban rules, is not allowed to be out of pocket too long on the costs of congressional member and staff travel," Abramoff wrote in November 1996.
Though a tiny set of U.S. territorial islands in the Pacific Ocean with a population of about 80,000, Abramoff's client received constant attention - often numerous contacts in a week - from DeLay's staff in the mid- to late 1990s, the records show.
DeLay himself met or talked with Abramoff at least two dozen times in 1996 and 1997, when Abramoff's work for the islands got under way, the records show.
DeLay aides were in far more frequent contact, often talking day to day with Abramoff and his team of lobbyists, which charged the Northern Marianas $3 million in lobbying fees between October 1996 and October 1997.
On one trip that Abramoff arranged for DeLay and his staff to take to Russia in August 1997, the lobbyist billed the Northern Marianas for 20 hours of interactions with DeLay and his staff even though the trip was supposed to focus on Russian affairs, the records show.
Legislative dealings with DeLay's office were frequently sandwiched around campaign contributions, golf outings or trips provided or arranged by Abramoff for lawmakers, including some for DeLay.
For instance, the lobbyist and his wife gave maximum $5,000 donations each to DeLay's leadership political action committee on Jan. 14, 1997, about two months before DeLay met with the island's governor during a Washington visit and gave a glowing speech about the islands.
One of DeLay's top congressional aides at the time, Tony Rudy, e-mailed Abramoff a copy of remarks DeLay made to the full House on March 19, 1997, praising the islands as a "model of reform."
Abramoff also arranged for DeLay and his wife to visit the Mariana Islands during the 1997 Christmas break. Earlier that month, two DeLay staffers went to the islands as well, the records show.
In April, 1996, two donors from the islands gave $2,000 each to DeLay's campaign. In June 6, 1996, Abramoff gave a $2,000 donation in the name of DeLay's office to a charity golf tournament.
And a month after Abramoff wrote the islands about getting legislation they opposed blocked in the House, the political action committee for Abramoff's firm donated $500 to DeLay's campaign in October 1996.
The records show Abramoff's lobbying team sometimes billed the client to attend Republican fundraisers, such as one in August 1996 for Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa.
In June 1997, he reported to the islands that he went to the U.S. Open golf tournament "with a number of our congressional staffer friends."
He credited the numerous trips he arranged to the islands with fending off the new labor rules the Clinton administration and some congressional Democrats were seeking.
"There is no doubt that trips to the CNMI (islands) are one of the most effective ways to build permanent friends on the Hill," the firm wrote the island government in a lobbying plan in February 1998.
Some of the lawmakers Abramoff arranged to travel to the islands included Reps. Dana Rohrabacher and Brian Bilbray, both California Republicans, and Ralph Hall, a Texas Democrat.
Wednesday, April 27, 2005
Friday, April 22, 2005
Justice Sunday
Welcome to MichaelMoore.com!
Is Rice Obstructing the Bolton Investigation?
A very serious allegation buried in a story in today’s Washington Post:
On Monday, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told her senior staff she was disappointed about the stream of allegations [about John Bolton] and said she did not want any information coming out of the department that could adversely affect the nomination, said officials speaking on the condition of anonymity.
18 U.S.C. Section 1505:
Whoever corruptly, or by threats or force, or by any threatening letter or communication influences, obstructs, or impedes or endeavors to influence, obstruct, or impede…the due and proper exercise of the power of inquiry under which any inquiry or investigation is being had by either House, or any committee of either House or any joint committee of the Congress–
Shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both.
This is serious enough that a reporter covering the State Department should inquire about Rice’s conduct. What, exactly, did Rice tell her subordinates? How is this consistent with their full cooperation with a Congressional inquiry.
Posted by Judd April 20th, 2005 8:54 am
Permalink | Comment (73)
Filed Under: Congress, International Relations
73 Comments »
The URI to TrackBack this entry is: http://thinkprogress.org/wp-trackback.php/678
1.
These people are bullies, plain and simple. They are willing to blow democratic principles out of the water to get what they want. The opposition needs to stand up to them, punch hard and true right square in the face, continuously if necessary. Tempers will flare, blood will be shed, but isn’t this country worth it! Fight them until they back down. Bullies always back down because they’re wrong, we just need a few good members of Congress to step in the ring.
Comment by Jay — April 20th, 2005 @ 9:26 am
2.
Anyone who thinks that this will be ‘investigated’ is seriously fooling themselves. If there is one thing that should have been learned in the last 5 years, it’s that criminals that investigate criminals always find out, hey!, we’re innocent! Really! Would we lie to you??? Come on folks, blogger and real investigations could find, not only the ’smoking gun’, but they could find in the hand of l’il Ms. Rice with her finger on the trigger about to squeeze off another round and the line would be thusly: “What are you going to believe, us, or your lying eyes?”
Comment by Jim — April 20th, 2005 @ 9:30 am
3.
There is a difference between ‘not obstructing’ and ‘not volunteering’. I don’t see anything wrong with Rice instructing people not to get ahead of the Senate in their investigation. If she meant that people should not respond to Senate requests, then she is in the wrong. If she meant that she didn’t want people volunteering information before it was requested (unless illegal activity was found) then she was in the right, and it is the same as we did during democratic administrations.
Of course, it is usually best to provide the bad information to the Senate in advance of the hearings rather than making them dig for it, but that isn’t how this administration works and it is contributing to Bolton’s problems.
Comment by Caitlyn Antrim — April 20th, 2005 @ 9:54 am
4.
Oh come on Caitlyn, what do you think she meant?
Comment by mudkitty — April 20th, 2005 @ 10:05 am
5.
I have no doubt that Condi Rice would go TO ANY LENGTHS to confirm the President’s nominee. Her devotion is, always has been, and always will be to George Bush first and foremost.
She exists to serve Bush. Not this country. That was made abundantly clear in the 9.11 hearings wherein her obvious goal was to protect the President from ctiticism. Not to honestly discuss issues that led to the attack.
She has no more interest in public service than she has in collecting stamps.
Comment by Victoria — April 20th, 2005 @ 10:11 am
6.
Victoria is exactly right. Remember when Condi accidentally referred to George Bush as “my husband"? She’s in love!
Comment by Audrey — April 20th, 2005 @ 10:33 am
7.
Condi is just protecting her boss. I don’t think it’s right, they both should be history. Unfortunately we are a country w/ 59 mil idiots so I’m not surprised by her actions either.
Happy 4/20 everyone!!!
Comment by kindness — April 20th, 2005 @ 10:40 am
8.
4 20. cool
Comment by Jim — April 20th, 2005 @ 10:53 am
9.
She was picked for one reason - to toe the line and do what Rove/Bush say to do: support all the policies, support the people they choose, and don’t ask questions. Powell gave them shit, and they will not have that from the help.
Comment by Flamethrower — April 20th, 2005 @ 11:05 am
10.
Condi Rice speaks out against Russia’s lack of an ‘independent free press’…
Her love of a free press must have inspired the Bush admin to create and distribute fake news segments to American media outlets.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=574&ncid=574&e=3&u=/nm/20050420/wl_nm/russia_usa_rice_dc
Comment by Victoria — April 20th, 2005 @ 11:16 am
11.
No! She’s not obstructing. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a Condi fan but in this case Condi’s undermining Bolton. By saying what she did she signaled there’s dirt on the guy. She doesn’t like Bolton. Cheney tried to plant him in her office and she didn’t want him reporting back to Cheney on every little thing. She also doesn’t want Bolton at the UN. So GW is going to have to pick who he loves most - Cheney or Condi.
Just the fact that she and not Bush announced his nomination was a signal that she’s got a slight edge. For now.
Comment by Maezeppa — April 20th, 2005 @ 11:34 am
12.
Bush praised Lincoln yesterday. The way Lincoln prevailed in 1864-1865 was by aggressively pressing the offensive against the Confederacy ON ALL FRONTS SIMULTANEOUSLY.
The Confederacy couldn’t fight that many battles at once, everywhere, and collapsed.
The only hope for the U.S. democracy is for Republican patriots to turn against the Bushco war on democracy. The Democratic party can’t fight all these battles on all these fronts simultaneously. Rice, Bolton, Blackbridge, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, and Rove are all vulnerable, exposed. But like Sherman and Grant that march at the head of juggernauts gobbling their opposition.
Unless rank and file Republicans “desert” their fascist party and side with the opposition in these skirmishes and confrontations – like Voinovitch did yesterday – the juggernaut will roll right over our country and democracy as we have known it will collapse.
Look what happened to the Sioux.
Comment by flotron — April 20th, 2005 @ 11:44 am
13.
Winston Churchill:
I would say to the House, as I said to those who have joined this government: “I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat.” We have before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind. We have before us many, many long months of struggle and of suffering. You ask, What is our policy? I will say; “It is to wage war, by sea, land and air, with all our might and with all the strength that God can give us: to wage war against a monstrous tyranny, never surpassed in the dark lamentable catalogue of human crime. That is our policy.” You ask, What is our aim? I can answer with one word: Victory - victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory however long and hard the road may be; for without victory there is no survival.”
- First Address as Prime Minister, May 13 1940.
Comment by bascombe — April 20th, 2005 @ 12:04 pm
14.
I do not at all underrate the severity of the ordeal which lies before us; but I believe our countrymen will show themselves capable of standing up to it, like the brave men of Barcelona, and will be able to stand up to it, and carry on in spite of it, at least as well as any other people in the world. Much will depend upon this; every man and every woman will have the chance to show the finest qualities of their race, and render the highest service to their cause. For all of us, at this time, whatever our sphere, our station, our occupation or our duties, it will be a help to remember the famous lines: He nothing common did or mean, Upon that memorable scene.
- Winston Churchill, “Their Finest Hour", June 18 1940.
Comment by bascombe — April 20th, 2005 @ 12:07 pm
15.
The Republican Party appears to be “drunk with power". If it fails to reign in Tom DeLay and tuck him quietly away, it may well find itself no longer the majority. Frist, also, needs to be careful of his utterances to the media … “our voice is not being heard"?? The voice of the American people have not been heard since Bush & Company took over this country!
Comment by Marva — April 20th, 2005 @ 12:33 pm
16.
Ive watched the hearings and was aghast when Senator Lugar began the vote, and I’m very relieved that Senator Joe Biden spoke so forcefully at the outset and redoubled his remarks to the chairman. For a short while there I thought well, here go the republicans again, they arent going to consider their actions they’re going to do this, even Senator Hagel’s remark that he may note vote for the nominee on the full vote didnt account for much, knowing the greater body of course has the greater numbers of members who atleast on a party line are more inclined to approve this nomination made by the President.
But nothing meant more to me than when a statesman was heard by the name of Voinovich!
There is serious considerations at hand here about the future of the nation and verily the world if this nominee is sent to represent you and me.
His remarks in the past are inflamatory, his conduct towrds subordinates, reprehensible, the pattern fatal to the well being of the relationship we have with the world.
Like it or not till the day the UN is ever closed down, the US will have a seat there and a voice and that voice should be in the best tradition of the State Department, and in the interest of the People, not the skewed prerogatives of the individuals on the scene at the moment.
Comment by stew — April 20th, 2005 @ 12:43 pm
17.
e-mail address edited to reflect correct spelling
Comment by stew — April 20th, 2005 @ 12:45 pm
18.
If Watergate was a “cancer” on Nixon’s presidency, then Dubya’s consistent promotion of grossly incompetent (but fiercely loyal) Constitution-hating toadies is a brain tumor.
People - it’s time to stand and be counted.
Comment by Dr. Lee — April 20th, 2005 @ 1:00 pm
19.
Everyone can forget investigating this little allegation regarding Aunt Condi-mima…the inmates are running the asylum, remember? Who really thinks anyone will look into this, two years after we still don’t know who outed Valerie Plame?
This government, and the people who continue to support it, have so long passed from the realm of outrageous to the farcical (only to foreigners, it can’t be funny for most Americans), and Blaghdaddy is beginnig to wonder if perhaps America doesn’t deserve the leader America chooses…Prove him wrong.
Comment by Blaghdaddy — April 20th, 2005 @ 1:36 pm
20.
So what else is new? I’m not surprised about Convoluted Rice’s criminal behavior to supress the truth about John Bolt-on. G Wrong Bush-it and his mob of thugs have been breaking laws right from the start.
Comment by KEVIN SCHMIDT — April 20th, 2005 @ 1:42 pm
21.
Rice Obstructing Bolton Investigation?
Rice Obstructing Bolton Investigation?
Trackback by The Supreme Irony of Life… — April 20th, 2005 @ 1:53 pm
22.
Kindalousy Rice - wow, did she POOCH 9/11. National Security Advisor my aching butt. She’s already proved she will cover up anything - Americans be damned.
Comment by Patriot — April 20th, 2005 @ 2:04 pm
23.
Well, this discussion has been entertaining to watch…but very sad! The rhetoric and the logic are shallow, childish, silly…few of the comments carry much weight, nothing but a lot of arrogant whining, especially the ‘59mill idiots’ comment! Wake up…..find a different approach because this reactionary venting isn’t convincing. Find some substance!!!
Comment by kris — April 20th, 2005 @ 2:27 pm
24.
Now is the time to stand and be counted. Hey Dr. Lee……..ONE! Give me a break.
Mark
W………still the PRESIDENT
D……….still the LEADER
Comment by Mark — April 20th, 2005 @ 2:33 pm
25.
bite me kris. I stand by my 59 mil idiots statement.
Comment by kindness — April 20th, 2005 @ 2:45 pm
26.
Kris, critiquing the banter is fine, but you have added zero to the debate yourself. Where are your substantive comments? I think the discussion illustrates the level of disgust pretty well, and having a forum to vent useful as far as I’m concerned.
It’s arrogant to complain about the problem when you’ve just inserted yourself as an obvious party to it.
Comment by Jay — April 20th, 2005 @ 2:55 pm
27.
The thing about Democrats is they dont stand up and fight at ALL. No position and act like a dog being kicked by tucking their tal between their legs. Totally playing into “Repugnents” hands. we have a screaming guy from Vermotn leading us to no where again. My vote is put you rmoney and time in Move On and forget the Dems as far as policy goes. The whole point is…hard to stand up when you are standing up with a bunch of p**sys…Man, I really am embarrassed I am a Democrat, we need fresh blood, courage and a clean start…then we can take on the Condi’d. Delay is getting away with this as well…watch and wait.
Comment by rebe — April 20th, 2005 @ 2:58 pm
28.
I hope the 59 Mil idiots get every thing they voted for. Four months into this new term and going down hill fast. My only hope at the end we never hear of the GOP again.
Comment by Willie Loucks — April 20th, 2005 @ 3:23 pm
29.
CONTRARY TO POPULAR OPINION, CONDI RICE IS A STUPID PERSON. THERE IS NO OTHER WORD FOR HER. SHE IS NOT HALF-BRIGHT, NOT SLOW, SIMPLY STUPID. DON’T GET ME STARTED.
Comment by MICHAEL R. ASHLEY — April 20th, 2005 @ 3:46 pm
30.
Hey Mark - Bush was NEVER a leader - just the spoiled scion of a ruthlessly rich family. David Koresh was more of a leader.
kris - use your real name: Ann Coulter.
Comment by Dr. Lee — April 20th, 2005 @ 3:47 pm
31.
Four months into this new term - look on the bright side - only 3 and a half years left! Just think all the trillions more in national debt that’s not a problem, all the wonderful nominees, the countries yet to invade, the …
Comment by Flamethrower — April 20th, 2005 @ 3:58 pm
32.
Rebe, part of the problem is, it’s in our mindset to NOT be violent fascist pigs. Claiming to be “moral” and “decent” and “compassionate", then “shedding blood” as an early method to ‘get what you want’ is what THEY do, not us. If you want to make changes for the better, and in a “moral” way, you have to be the part, not just give it lip-service. Republicans talk about “morals", yet let companies set policies that starve a portion of our population, poison people and cause heinous illnesses, and shift production to 3rd worlds where they can use slave labor. We aren’t “pussies", we’re standing on the moral high-ground here. Once it get’s to the point where they (the pugs) get ‘violent’ in a real-world context, belive me.. there will be plenty of us “pussies” content to get out our guns and drive them back to the shadows they came from. But, for now, we have to keep a level head and use facts and persistence to make our point.
As far as Rice’s obstruction, she doesn’t say diddly about “don’t volunteer info", she says she doesn’t want ANY info COMING OUT OF THAT DEPARTMENT.. that’s not saying “hey, only do what you have to", that’s saying “block the info from getting out". That’s criminal.
Anyway, we know nothing will come of it. Our leaders aren’t able to get anything done because the Repugs stole the majority and refuse to lead.. they just want to pass more laws that put more of your tax dollars in the hands of corperations while making sure the richest 2% never pay taxes again..
Comment by Savantster — April 20th, 2005 @ 3:58 pm
33.
Ya know, I think Condi is probably a VERY intelligent person. But she shows us repeatedly that she is more concerned with covering her boss’s ass than she is covering the American people. Now is that unusual in a political situation? NO. Does she owe us more than Bush? I think so but she obviously does not.
Comment by kindness — April 20th, 2005 @ 4:16 pm
34.
Savantster-
Possibly it’s time to rethink that mode of behaviour.
Even though we have a RIGHT WINGED media, and facsists in power, headlines still leak out about Tom DeLay’s criminal activities, Bush clamps down harder on the poor and supresses the truth about terrorism, and STILL morons like this kris idiot want something “substantive.” Any more GD substantive would be debtor’s prison. It’s time to stop being “decent” about it, and give Mark the “break” he so eagerly wants and desperately needs.
ONE.
Comment by Dr. Lee — April 20th, 2005 @ 4:18 pm
35.
Dr. Lee #34
I agree that it’s -almost- time, but we still have to see what’s gonna happen with the voting issues (following the commission closely). If we get some real progress on that front, we can vote the nasty folks out in 2006 and 08, then start repealing the joke laws they put in place.
If we don’t get satisfaction on voting rules, if we don’t get full disclosure on various issues (Plame, Bolton, etc), -then- I’m with ya.. completely..
TWO
Comment by Savantster — April 20th, 2005 @ 4:26 pm
36.
Savantster - it’s “almost” time. Are you kidding? It’s so past time, that on many issues it’s too late.
How’s this for substance:
It is public record that the Bush Administration stonewalled on the 9/11 invesigation and in fact fought to prevent it in the first place. Why?
They tried to keep the August 6th Presidential Daily Brief about “Bin Laden determined to Strike within the US” a secret.
They ignored warnings from the outgoing Clinton administration that terrorism in general and Bin Laden in particular was a grave concern and they did the same when the Richard Clarke’s of the world warned that the system was “flashing red” in the summer of 01.
When the dots are connected, the picture is clear. The Bush people knew that something major was about to happen, yet they did…..nothing.
Bush stays in Crawford after the 8/6 PDB warning and he jets back to D.C. for the bogus Schiavo matter.
What more needs to be said?
Comment by Jason — April 20th, 2005 @ 5:02 pm
37.
Many thanks to kindness (??), Dr. Lee, Jay and company…you proved my point! I’m not a Repug, simply disappointed with the tone of the response. Jay, sorry bud…my ‘contribution’ is to encourage that we raise the level of discussion beyond ‘bite me’. If we want serious change, then we need serious discussion, not paranoia name-calling and bumper sticker slogans.
Comment by kris — April 20th, 2005 @ 5:12 pm
38.
Ann: NO “level of discussion” is going to change a DAMN thing. You came in here insulting people to “raise the level of discussion?”
What EXACTLY would make you happy? Kindalousy Rice and the entire Bush “administration” are a bunch of THIEVES that LIE, and I frankly don’t care if you believe it, or not. I don’t have a video taped confession from them.
You’re very welcome - you deserved every bit of it.
Jason - do I hear a “THREE"?
Comment by Dr. Lee — April 20th, 2005 @ 5:20 pm
39.
Dr. L - It’s a beautiful thing to watch, first you dig your own hole and then bury yourself…no wonder we lost and got stuck with Howard for the future. L stands for Loser. Don’t worry about making me happy, not your job.
Comment by kris — April 20th, 2005 @ 5:32 pm
40.
Ann: Thanks so much for “raising the level of discussion.”
Comment by Dr. Lee — April 20th, 2005 @ 5:36 pm
41.
Doesn’t that statute apply even more clearly to Scully’s threat to fire medicare actuary Foster if he revealed his estimate of the cost of the medicare drug benefit?
Comment by Upper West — April 20th, 2005 @ 5:43 pm
42.
kris, you are burdened by some kind of angst today, eh? Well listen up. We may have lost the election in November. But we haven’t lost our souls. Now I don’t mean that in the religious sense. I mean that in the honor and character sense. Do those things buy or mean anything with this administration? They would probably ask you what your yearly income is, how much you contributed to their party, PACS, etc and then give an answer from that.
That is my point exactly. Rather than spend time flogging ourselves, talking about stuff helps us build on tomorrow. Don’t be so down.
There is always hope (just not with this administration).
Comment by kindness — April 20th, 2005 @ 5:45 pm
43.
I think that this site is an excellent forum to toss ideas around with all walks. If we keep it civil, ask questions, give reasoned responses and differing opinions….it’s a powerful form of democracy (blogocracy?).
Kris: waste of keystrokes.
Dr. Lee: Fill me in on the meaning of One, Two, Three?
Comment by Jason — April 20th, 2005 @ 5:48 pm
44.
Jason -
I said it was time to stand and be counted (#18).
“Mark” decided that deserved an obnoxious reply (#24)
But I ain’t F***ing kidding - I ‘ve had enough of trying to reason with liars, and started counting (#34)
Savantster thinks it’s still worth while trying to get reason from zealots, but gives a tentative TWO (#35)
It sounds like you agree with me - being truthful with liars has proved pointless - we only lose more ground as the Repugs whine “Liberal press! Liberal press!” when the “liberal press” helped sell the war of conquest in Iraq. The “Liberal press” has forgotten:
Osama Bin Laden
Valery Plame
Max Cleland
Cheney’s energy task force (including Taliban representatives)
anyway…we try to be reasonable - they only get more arrogant and obnoxious. It’s time to stand up and be counted - or be ground asunder.
Comment by Dr. Lee — April 20th, 2005 @ 6:03 pm
45.
Welcome to the new Orwellian world. Only the Rovian administration could screw this all up so bad. Dont the neo-cons realize that they are only sending us into a twisted downward spiral of hate and fascism? Wasn’t it US that went to war with Germany for trying to take over other countries? Isnt that why we went to war with Iraq? All this religious re-awakening, massive deception campaigns, and name calling from both sides, is turning america’s “morals” into another bought and sold commodity for the rich and the people with power. Hey KRIS> absolute power corrupts absolutely, and last time i checked people like Condi Rice, Karl Rove, Dick Cheney, and GW Bush were the heads of the hydra. Not to mention the fact that Rove will make anyone in the government dissappear if they so much as say a nasty comment about our “furher".
Although we all know Condi is guilty of obstruction, and all these other Bush appointent numbskulls are just pieces of Bush and Rove’s lil political gambit, the public KNOWS. We see it, and we cant stop it yet, but we only have to wait till 2006 or until a few SMART republicans start to grow a conscience. Hey its allready happening with the blocking of Bolton, and the hearings for DeLay. They may get away with it now, but there will be more transgressions and they cannot keep chainging the laws and rigging the game forever. The real politicians (the ones who seriously care about why they are where they are) will eventually prevail. That or China will kick our ass.
Comment by Matt — April 20th, 2005 @ 6:31 pm
46.
Gotcha. I’m in for the Three spot then, wholeheartedly.
The people that appear to stand in the middle and ask for concessions from both sides in order to “elevate” the level of discourse just haven’t done enough reading yet. The Republicans are not screwing around, they play this game to win and they will destroy everything in their paths. I would like to continue on the theme that Dr. Lee started with his list of people/issues that the media has conveniently given short-shrift (ok, so they’ve ignored them)…and start a new list of people that I think have been nothing short of heroic in speaking truth to power:
Barbara Boxer
Richard Clarke
Joe Wilson
Paul O’Neill
Howard Dean
Siebel Edmonds
General Shinseki
Randi Rhodes
etc….
Comment by Jason — April 20th, 2005 @ 6:33 pm
47.
Yay Barbara Boxer!! Proud to have here here in CA.
Comment by Matt — April 20th, 2005 @ 6:34 pm
48.
I agree wit Maezeppa
Everyone knows that you must be standing squarely behind a man before you can stab him in the back…
Comment by Humphrey Appleby — April 20th, 2005 @ 6:57 pm
49.
“bite me kris. I stand by my 59 mil idiots statement. ”
It is a fake statistic, but don’t let that bother you.
THE LAST ELECTION WAS STOLEN.
I hope that doesn’t disturb your nightmare.
We haven’t had a legal election in five years.
28 states have no paper trail.
Diebold, ES&S, Triad – all have committed FELONIES.
John Kerry won the last election.
Al Gore won the one before him.
Unless we get our voting rights back, game over.
Quoting fake statistics in order to engage in BIGOTRY is just plain stupid.
Comment by Paul in LA — April 20th, 2005 @ 7:13 pm
50.
Why don’t Kris and Dr. Lee and friends develop some maturity and insight - not to mention some appreciation for the King’s or Queen’s English. I am not a fan of Bush - father or son - and am far left of center on issues involving human rights and limitations on government power. I do believe, though, that a ligitimate function of government is the protection of the weak from the rapacity of those holding power. Nothing is accomplished nor is anyone served by “You’re one!", “No, you’re one!” “Nuhun!”
Comment by Avi Noel — April 20th, 2005 @ 7:20 pm
51.
Kindasleezy Wheat should be in jail. Period. Along with most of this embarrasing host of morons called an administration. I’ve seen better performances at a high school play.
Comment by Black Dog — April 20th, 2005 @ 7:26 pm
52.
Some Bush defender above asked for substance. Here is substance: GM posted a billion dollar loss because they ignored the public’s demand for hybrids. Why didn’t GM bother to develop a hybrid? Because they had assurances from the Bush junta that there be plenty of oil for everyone. The public speaks, we the people. There are waiting lists for hybrids in California made by, you guessed it, our Japanese friends. So, party of W’s legacy will be the eventual bankruptcy of one of the largest corporations in the history of the planet. And, if Dopey and the boys eliminate the fillibuster, they better pray that there is never again a Democrat in the White House and a Democratic majority in Congress because they will eviscerate everything Dopey and his gang of whores did in their eight year feeding frenzy. Just sit back and watch the fun. Don’t stress out so much.
Comment by Mark Cannon — April 20th, 2005 @ 9:48 pm
53.
to the bushies out there.how many soldiers died when mr clinton was president.
Comment by dan savitsky — April 20th, 2005 @ 10:00 pm
54.
Rove-induced paranoia about “statesman” Voinovich. Do you think any of these guys really act independently? That would be refreshing, but my concern is that his “orders” were to make the outraged senator statement he did… then, as he recounted in his soliloquoy about Richard Holbrooke, he investigates the charges against Bolton, talks to Bolton, then decides the guy isn’t so bad… and then once he annoints the guy, then the other “hand wringers” like Chafee and Hagel go along with him. And it’s all part of the scheme. OR Voinovich actually showed some true courage and principles; apparently with Democrats muted at every turn, often by their own fear of red statery, our only hope is for Republicans to show some guts.
Comment by Bobbygoode — April 20th, 2005 @ 10:08 pm
55.
Mark at #52.. try this on for size
guess it matters not
soon you’ll be taxed for the amount of air you breath since the government needs to keep air clean.. Here’s a thought, how about making corperations pay some taxes? Stop giving them all kinds of loop-holes and make them pay for what they get a TON more use out of than the average American..
Comment by Savantster — April 20th, 2005 @ 10:36 pm
56.
I appologize.. my #55 above has a link to where they are trying to tax “per mile driven” instead of “per gallon of gas", based on our shifting to Hybrids soon (since we’ll be out of oil before long)
Comment by Savantster — April 20th, 2005 @ 10:38 pm
57.
#50-
You’ve added……what, besides your opinion?
If I may move on:
We need to be more militant. We need to use there strong suit against them. We need coordinated replies to the STINKING lies we hear over and over, i.e., “liberal media.” This should uniformally answered with a consistent list of media items we would LIKE to see pursued. Just interrupt any GOP windbag as soon as the magic words get said. Another good example would be “liberal lawyers,” answered with a tidy list of GOP lawyers. “Activist judges” should be answered with “rule of law.” They loved it in Florida.
Their pride is their pain.
Comment by Dr. Lee — April 20th, 2005 @ 11:42 pm
58.
Avi Neol:
EXXXXCCCUUUUUSSSSEEEE MEEEEEEEEEEE!
(I used “there” when I should have used “their.” I am but the scum under your shoe. How’s that for insight - like it now? From now on, until I feel redeemed, I am “Intern Lee.")
Comment by Dr. Lee — April 20th, 2005 @ 11:47 pm
59.
Very interesting Savantster. My concern is that there is no ‘them’ to close corporate tax loop holes. People still don’t get it. There is no government. It is ALL corporations. They are not about to raise taxes on themselves. As for getting more militant, we tried that in the ’60’s and they are still chasing us down and throwing us in prison. Remember, you don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows. Remember?? As for turning militant now, why bother? All empires end, Alexander, Napolean, Adolf, Bush. It’s time the american empire ended. Perhaps God is just after all. Let justice fall like rain from the sky. Watch the republicans destroy themselves and the country at the same time. What a legacy!!
Comment by Mark Cannon — April 21st, 2005 @ 1:16 am
60.
If you REALLY want to make a difference, instead of arguing with each other on this, or any other site, and start writing letters to the editor of your local paper, register people to vote, contribute to the state party HQ, etc.
We’re exerting an awful lot of energy on these blogs, but are we accomplishing anything, other than irritating each other?
Comment by Georgia Dem — April 21st, 2005 @ 9:04 am
61.
Georgia Dem, your point is well taken but many of us do those things anyway. This is extracurricular activity. A day-to-day ventfest if you will.
Embrace it, enjoy it, have some fun.
Comment by Jay — April 21st, 2005 @ 9:40 am
62.
I don’t mean SDS militant - not just yet, anyway. I mean shutting them up each and every time they start to spout the usual rational-discussion-ending rhetoric, such as the phrase “liberal media.”
One reason those fascists pigs have so many devotees is because they always spoke with one voice. I think a little of what’s good for the goose-step would be good for the gander.
(I’ve had several letters to the Editor printed - didn’t see any big changes. I sent money, and they didn’t spend it on a legal challenge in Ohio. We need to put it to Fox Spews and Flush Dimballs with a unified front.)
Comment by Intern Lee — April 21st, 2005 @ 9:44 am
63.
Georgia Dem
Part of our “problem” is, with the problems in 2000 which caused some concern, we started wondering if our votes actually mattered. People say “of course they do, this is America".. Ok.. so a -lot- of what happened in 2000 around the country looked ok.. it was -mostly- Florida where it came down to “stopped counting votes".
Then you have 2004.. where there is a LOT of evidence to show that the elections were totally hijacked. Several states (all with electronic voting) reported a LOT of problems.. The exit polls (used around the world as an indicator to voting problems.. NOT as a ‘predictor’ of the election like a lot of people believe) indicate a VERY HIGH probability of FRAUD in the 2004 election. Yet, no one is doing anything about that yet either. Because they (neo-cons) were able to slink in in 2000, they got bigger in 2004. Clint Curtis shows that in 2000 they were already working on it.. Also note that the -bulk- of the people against ‘paper trials’ are Repubs and neo-cons and the companies that make the machines. MOST reasonable people think paper is a GOOD idea.. will we get it? probably not for 2006 or 2008. If we don’t fix our “voting", it won’t matter how many people you bring to the polls.. a 30 second exercise by any ONE person can change all that .. flip 100s of thousands of votes (or just change names of the “winners", there’s no way to audit that either).. and without paper trails, there is NO way to verify the original votes.
you see, it’s not about “being active” anymore, it’s about our contry being hijacked by the neo-cons and right-wing fanatics. We have to step in and stop that, and soon.
Comment by Savantster — April 21st, 2005 @ 3:20 pm
64.
To get back to the original question: if she was correctly quoted, then it seems clear she is obstructing an inquiry, which generates a big: “Heavens to Mergatriod! A Bush administration official blatantly breaking the law! What a shock! It’s ALMOST as if….they run the government in secret - despite the American people instead of for the American people. Again: what a shock.”
Comment by “Just plain” Lee — April 21st, 2005 @ 6:04 pm
65.
If you haven’t already read this….I recommend that you do. It is sobering and grave, but I fear all too true:
http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/031005_globalcorp.shtml
Comment by Jason — April 21st, 2005 @ 6:05 pm
66.
OK, some fun: Did someone mention bumper stickers? Here ya go:
B-U-S-H: Beating Up Saddam Hussein
B-U-S-H: Being Unilateral Sure Hurts
B-U-S-H: Belligerence Undermines Safe Homeland
B-U-S-H: BinLaden Unearths Safe Haven
B-U-S-H: Beefing Up the Saudi Hegemony
B-U-S-H: Blatant Use of Spin and Hyperbole
B-U-S-H: Building the United States of Halliburton
Enjoy! -Tubeman
Comment by tubeman — April 21st, 2005 @ 6:26 pm
67.
“you see, it’s not about “being active” anymore, it’s about our contry being hijacked by the neo-cons and right-wing fanatics. We have to step in and stop that, and soon.”
So - now you’re saying “enough is enough"?
Jason - a very sobering read, but not that far from what my paranoid self envisioned. My question is: lot’s of people must know about this, including John Kerry and our last (and probably THE last) freely-elected President of the United States, Bill Clinton. Why do they all stay mum?
Comment by I be Lee — April 21st, 2005 @ 8:24 pm
68.
Stand up and be counted is all well and good and accomplished much in the 19th century.
The game is SO rigged now that if you marched 1,000,000 people on Washington for one week, all you’d have are alot of dead patriots and more crowding of newly built,"privatized” prisons.
All of this ties in with Peak Oil, facism, and the continuing economic extermination of what once was the middle class or as J.P. Morgan called it,
“the nigger buffer". They’ve known about oil depletion for decades and have built dozens of these new private prisons to house the “rabble”
when it comes down to out and out rebellion, debtors prisons, gas rationing, and depression.
Comment by Bruce — April 21st, 2005 @ 8:52 pm
69.
Lee, sure they know about it. Even superhawk ultra-neocon James Woolsey has recently called for conservation and investment in alternative sources of energy (that alone should be sounding the alarm). Kerry touched on the relationship between our oil consumption and having troops stationed in the Middle East long-term, but he didn’t pound that message and I imagine the Bush ads that referenced old legislation to increase the gas tax that Kerry got behind when the economy was strong kept that message at bay. The Kerry campaign did tout a plan for kicking our oil dependence, and for alternative fuels, but they were afraid to make it a prominent issue.
We must have leadership on this issue. The transition to other sources of energy MUST start now. The resistance to these changes is powerful and well-funded….but reality has to be a part of the equation…..right?
I’m terrified for my kids. The future is indeed bleak if our leaders don’t act now!
Comment by Jason — April 21st, 2005 @ 10:10 pm
70.
What difference does voter registration make in a stolen election? We have allowed a non-elected president occupy the White House for going on six years now. What further proof do you need that the system is entirely broken? You cannot work through a broken system. We figured that out when the country re-elected Tricky Dick on the eve of indictment. How do you reason with people who knowingly allowed a crook to lead them? The people who voted for Bush will not understand how wrong they were until their children are slaughtered in some foreign hell hole and the official language of America is Spanish. It’s coming folks!
Comment by Mark Cannon — April 21st, 2005 @ 10:20 pm
71.
First of all, that woman has proven that her first and only job is to cover Bush’s rear end. She got up in front of the 9-11 commission and blatantly LIED. Why she’s not in a jail cell, preferably Guantanamo Bay, is beyond me. For her lies, Bush promoted her to Secretary of State because Colin Powell wasn’t going to do another term with people he has been quoted as describing “f****** crazies,” in which I believe him to be absolutely right. And now, in addition to frightening off anyone who might have “information which could adversely affect the nomination,” Congressman Henry Waxman is now trying to find out why “Secretary Rice” is withholding data from the Annual Terrorism Report of 2004. Of course, it’s painfully obvious WHY that’s happening: it’s a report which shows although the State Department touted having the “lowest annual total of international terrorist attacks since 1969,” Secretary Rice is trying to hide the fact that the REAL numbers show a 20-YEAR-HIGH, and which proves once again that Bush and his administration is LYING TO AMERICA, and she doesn’t want her meal ticket to look bad. Too late.
Lose Bolton. Ask questions. Seek the truth.
Comment by THE SHADOWDRAGON — April 22nd, 2005 @ 6:08 am
72.
I think they put assholes like Bolton out front to take the heat of them and their criminal activities. At least we have someone in the Intel community who knows how to run a right-wing death squad. Negroponte should be in an Latin American jail. These bastards are simply out of control.
Comment by Lee — April 22nd, 2005 @ 9:58 am
73.
Well, why don’t we just wait for Herr Gonzales to order the Justice Department to investigate this? He has sworn to uphold the law, & he wouldn’t weasel out of that, would he?
Is Rice Obstructing the Bolton Investigation?
A very serious allegation buried in a story in today’s Washington Post:
On Monday, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told her senior staff she was disappointed about the stream of allegations [about John Bolton] and said she did not want any information coming out of the department that could adversely affect the nomination, said officials speaking on the condition of anonymity.
18 U.S.C. Section 1505:
Whoever corruptly, or by threats or force, or by any threatening letter or communication influences, obstructs, or impedes or endeavors to influence, obstruct, or impede…the due and proper exercise of the power of inquiry under which any inquiry or investigation is being had by either House, or any committee of either House or any joint committee of the Congress–
Shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both.
This is serious enough that a reporter covering the State Department should inquire about Rice’s conduct. What, exactly, did Rice tell her subordinates? How is this consistent with their full cooperation with a Congressional inquiry.
Posted by Judd April 20th, 2005 8:54 am
Permalink | Comment (73)
Filed Under: Congress, International Relations
73 Comments »
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1.
These people are bullies, plain and simple. They are willing to blow democratic principles out of the water to get what they want. The opposition needs to stand up to them, punch hard and true right square in the face, continuously if necessary. Tempers will flare, blood will be shed, but isn’t this country worth it! Fight them until they back down. Bullies always back down because they’re wrong, we just need a few good members of Congress to step in the ring.
Comment by Jay — April 20th, 2005 @ 9:26 am
2.
Anyone who thinks that this will be ‘investigated’ is seriously fooling themselves. If there is one thing that should have been learned in the last 5 years, it’s that criminals that investigate criminals always find out, hey!, we’re innocent! Really! Would we lie to you??? Come on folks, blogger and real investigations could find, not only the ’smoking gun’, but they could find in the hand of l’il Ms. Rice with her finger on the trigger about to squeeze off another round and the line would be thusly: “What are you going to believe, us, or your lying eyes?”
Comment by Jim — April 20th, 2005 @ 9:30 am
3.
There is a difference between ‘not obstructing’ and ‘not volunteering’. I don’t see anything wrong with Rice instructing people not to get ahead of the Senate in their investigation. If she meant that people should not respond to Senate requests, then she is in the wrong. If she meant that she didn’t want people volunteering information before it was requested (unless illegal activity was found) then she was in the right, and it is the same as we did during democratic administrations.
Of course, it is usually best to provide the bad information to the Senate in advance of the hearings rather than making them dig for it, but that isn’t how this administration works and it is contributing to Bolton’s problems.
Comment by Caitlyn Antrim — April 20th, 2005 @ 9:54 am
4.
Oh come on Caitlyn, what do you think she meant?
Comment by mudkitty — April 20th, 2005 @ 10:05 am
5.
I have no doubt that Condi Rice would go TO ANY LENGTHS to confirm the President’s nominee. Her devotion is, always has been, and always will be to George Bush first and foremost.
She exists to serve Bush. Not this country. That was made abundantly clear in the 9.11 hearings wherein her obvious goal was to protect the President from ctiticism. Not to honestly discuss issues that led to the attack.
She has no more interest in public service than she has in collecting stamps.
Comment by Victoria — April 20th, 2005 @ 10:11 am
6.
Victoria is exactly right. Remember when Condi accidentally referred to George Bush as “my husband"? She’s in love!
Comment by Audrey — April 20th, 2005 @ 10:33 am
7.
Condi is just protecting her boss. I don’t think it’s right, they both should be history. Unfortunately we are a country w/ 59 mil idiots so I’m not surprised by her actions either.
Happy 4/20 everyone!!!
Comment by kindness — April 20th, 2005 @ 10:40 am
8.
4 20. cool
Comment by Jim — April 20th, 2005 @ 10:53 am
9.
She was picked for one reason - to toe the line and do what Rove/Bush say to do: support all the policies, support the people they choose, and don’t ask questions. Powell gave them shit, and they will not have that from the help.
Comment by Flamethrower — April 20th, 2005 @ 11:05 am
10.
Condi Rice speaks out against Russia’s lack of an ‘independent free press’…
Her love of a free press must have inspired the Bush admin to create and distribute fake news segments to American media outlets.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=574&ncid=574&e=3&u=/nm/20050420/wl_nm/russia_usa_rice_dc
Comment by Victoria — April 20th, 2005 @ 11:16 am
11.
No! She’s not obstructing. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a Condi fan but in this case Condi’s undermining Bolton. By saying what she did she signaled there’s dirt on the guy. She doesn’t like Bolton. Cheney tried to plant him in her office and she didn’t want him reporting back to Cheney on every little thing. She also doesn’t want Bolton at the UN. So GW is going to have to pick who he loves most - Cheney or Condi.
Just the fact that she and not Bush announced his nomination was a signal that she’s got a slight edge. For now.
Comment by Maezeppa — April 20th, 2005 @ 11:34 am
12.
Bush praised Lincoln yesterday. The way Lincoln prevailed in 1864-1865 was by aggressively pressing the offensive against the Confederacy ON ALL FRONTS SIMULTANEOUSLY.
The Confederacy couldn’t fight that many battles at once, everywhere, and collapsed.
The only hope for the U.S. democracy is for Republican patriots to turn against the Bushco war on democracy. The Democratic party can’t fight all these battles on all these fronts simultaneously. Rice, Bolton, Blackbridge, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, and Rove are all vulnerable, exposed. But like Sherman and Grant that march at the head of juggernauts gobbling their opposition.
Unless rank and file Republicans “desert” their fascist party and side with the opposition in these skirmishes and confrontations – like Voinovitch did yesterday – the juggernaut will roll right over our country and democracy as we have known it will collapse.
Look what happened to the Sioux.
Comment by flotron — April 20th, 2005 @ 11:44 am
13.
Winston Churchill:
I would say to the House, as I said to those who have joined this government: “I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat.” We have before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind. We have before us many, many long months of struggle and of suffering. You ask, What is our policy? I will say; “It is to wage war, by sea, land and air, with all our might and with all the strength that God can give us: to wage war against a monstrous tyranny, never surpassed in the dark lamentable catalogue of human crime. That is our policy.” You ask, What is our aim? I can answer with one word: Victory - victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory however long and hard the road may be; for without victory there is no survival.”
- First Address as Prime Minister, May 13 1940.
Comment by bascombe — April 20th, 2005 @ 12:04 pm
14.
I do not at all underrate the severity of the ordeal which lies before us; but I believe our countrymen will show themselves capable of standing up to it, like the brave men of Barcelona, and will be able to stand up to it, and carry on in spite of it, at least as well as any other people in the world. Much will depend upon this; every man and every woman will have the chance to show the finest qualities of their race, and render the highest service to their cause. For all of us, at this time, whatever our sphere, our station, our occupation or our duties, it will be a help to remember the famous lines: He nothing common did or mean, Upon that memorable scene.
- Winston Churchill, “Their Finest Hour", June 18 1940.
Comment by bascombe — April 20th, 2005 @ 12:07 pm
15.
The Republican Party appears to be “drunk with power". If it fails to reign in Tom DeLay and tuck him quietly away, it may well find itself no longer the majority. Frist, also, needs to be careful of his utterances to the media … “our voice is not being heard"?? The voice of the American people have not been heard since Bush & Company took over this country!
Comment by Marva — April 20th, 2005 @ 12:33 pm
16.
Ive watched the hearings and was aghast when Senator Lugar began the vote, and I’m very relieved that Senator Joe Biden spoke so forcefully at the outset and redoubled his remarks to the chairman. For a short while there I thought well, here go the republicans again, they arent going to consider their actions they’re going to do this, even Senator Hagel’s remark that he may note vote for the nominee on the full vote didnt account for much, knowing the greater body of course has the greater numbers of members who atleast on a party line are more inclined to approve this nomination made by the President.
But nothing meant more to me than when a statesman was heard by the name of Voinovich!
There is serious considerations at hand here about the future of the nation and verily the world if this nominee is sent to represent you and me.
His remarks in the past are inflamatory, his conduct towrds subordinates, reprehensible, the pattern fatal to the well being of the relationship we have with the world.
Like it or not till the day the UN is ever closed down, the US will have a seat there and a voice and that voice should be in the best tradition of the State Department, and in the interest of the People, not the skewed prerogatives of the individuals on the scene at the moment.
Comment by stew — April 20th, 2005 @ 12:43 pm
17.
e-mail address edited to reflect correct spelling
Comment by stew — April 20th, 2005 @ 12:45 pm
18.
If Watergate was a “cancer” on Nixon’s presidency, then Dubya’s consistent promotion of grossly incompetent (but fiercely loyal) Constitution-hating toadies is a brain tumor.
People - it’s time to stand and be counted.
Comment by Dr. Lee — April 20th, 2005 @ 1:00 pm
19.
Everyone can forget investigating this little allegation regarding Aunt Condi-mima…the inmates are running the asylum, remember? Who really thinks anyone will look into this, two years after we still don’t know who outed Valerie Plame?
This government, and the people who continue to support it, have so long passed from the realm of outrageous to the farcical (only to foreigners, it can’t be funny for most Americans), and Blaghdaddy is beginnig to wonder if perhaps America doesn’t deserve the leader America chooses…Prove him wrong.
Comment by Blaghdaddy — April 20th, 2005 @ 1:36 pm
20.
So what else is new? I’m not surprised about Convoluted Rice’s criminal behavior to supress the truth about John Bolt-on. G Wrong Bush-it and his mob of thugs have been breaking laws right from the start.
Comment by KEVIN SCHMIDT — April 20th, 2005 @ 1:42 pm
21.
Rice Obstructing Bolton Investigation?
Rice Obstructing Bolton Investigation?
Trackback by The Supreme Irony of Life… — April 20th, 2005 @ 1:53 pm
22.
Kindalousy Rice - wow, did she POOCH 9/11. National Security Advisor my aching butt. She’s already proved she will cover up anything - Americans be damned.
Comment by Patriot — April 20th, 2005 @ 2:04 pm
23.
Well, this discussion has been entertaining to watch…but very sad! The rhetoric and the logic are shallow, childish, silly…few of the comments carry much weight, nothing but a lot of arrogant whining, especially the ‘59mill idiots’ comment! Wake up…..find a different approach because this reactionary venting isn’t convincing. Find some substance!!!
Comment by kris — April 20th, 2005 @ 2:27 pm
24.
Now is the time to stand and be counted. Hey Dr. Lee……..ONE! Give me a break.
Mark
W………still the PRESIDENT
D……….still the LEADER
Comment by Mark — April 20th, 2005 @ 2:33 pm
25.
bite me kris. I stand by my 59 mil idiots statement.
Comment by kindness — April 20th, 2005 @ 2:45 pm
26.
Kris, critiquing the banter is fine, but you have added zero to the debate yourself. Where are your substantive comments? I think the discussion illustrates the level of disgust pretty well, and having a forum to vent useful as far as I’m concerned.
It’s arrogant to complain about the problem when you’ve just inserted yourself as an obvious party to it.
Comment by Jay — April 20th, 2005 @ 2:55 pm
27.
The thing about Democrats is they dont stand up and fight at ALL. No position and act like a dog being kicked by tucking their tal between their legs. Totally playing into “Repugnents” hands. we have a screaming guy from Vermotn leading us to no where again. My vote is put you rmoney and time in Move On and forget the Dems as far as policy goes. The whole point is…hard to stand up when you are standing up with a bunch of p**sys…Man, I really am embarrassed I am a Democrat, we need fresh blood, courage and a clean start…then we can take on the Condi’d. Delay is getting away with this as well…watch and wait.
Comment by rebe — April 20th, 2005 @ 2:58 pm
28.
I hope the 59 Mil idiots get every thing they voted for. Four months into this new term and going down hill fast. My only hope at the end we never hear of the GOP again.
Comment by Willie Loucks — April 20th, 2005 @ 3:23 pm
29.
CONTRARY TO POPULAR OPINION, CONDI RICE IS A STUPID PERSON. THERE IS NO OTHER WORD FOR HER. SHE IS NOT HALF-BRIGHT, NOT SLOW, SIMPLY STUPID. DON’T GET ME STARTED.
Comment by MICHAEL R. ASHLEY — April 20th, 2005 @ 3:46 pm
30.
Hey Mark - Bush was NEVER a leader - just the spoiled scion of a ruthlessly rich family. David Koresh was more of a leader.
kris - use your real name: Ann Coulter.
Comment by Dr. Lee — April 20th, 2005 @ 3:47 pm
31.
Four months into this new term - look on the bright side - only 3 and a half years left! Just think all the trillions more in national debt that’s not a problem, all the wonderful nominees, the countries yet to invade, the …
Comment by Flamethrower — April 20th, 2005 @ 3:58 pm
32.
Rebe, part of the problem is, it’s in our mindset to NOT be violent fascist pigs. Claiming to be “moral” and “decent” and “compassionate", then “shedding blood” as an early method to ‘get what you want’ is what THEY do, not us. If you want to make changes for the better, and in a “moral” way, you have to be the part, not just give it lip-service. Republicans talk about “morals", yet let companies set policies that starve a portion of our population, poison people and cause heinous illnesses, and shift production to 3rd worlds where they can use slave labor. We aren’t “pussies", we’re standing on the moral high-ground here. Once it get’s to the point where they (the pugs) get ‘violent’ in a real-world context, belive me.. there will be plenty of us “pussies” content to get out our guns and drive them back to the shadows they came from. But, for now, we have to keep a level head and use facts and persistence to make our point.
As far as Rice’s obstruction, she doesn’t say diddly about “don’t volunteer info", she says she doesn’t want ANY info COMING OUT OF THAT DEPARTMENT.. that’s not saying “hey, only do what you have to", that’s saying “block the info from getting out". That’s criminal.
Anyway, we know nothing will come of it. Our leaders aren’t able to get anything done because the Repugs stole the majority and refuse to lead.. they just want to pass more laws that put more of your tax dollars in the hands of corperations while making sure the richest 2% never pay taxes again..
Comment by Savantster — April 20th, 2005 @ 3:58 pm
33.
Ya know, I think Condi is probably a VERY intelligent person. But she shows us repeatedly that she is more concerned with covering her boss’s ass than she is covering the American people. Now is that unusual in a political situation? NO. Does she owe us more than Bush? I think so but she obviously does not.
Comment by kindness — April 20th, 2005 @ 4:16 pm
34.
Savantster-
Possibly it’s time to rethink that mode of behaviour.
Even though we have a RIGHT WINGED media, and facsists in power, headlines still leak out about Tom DeLay’s criminal activities, Bush clamps down harder on the poor and supresses the truth about terrorism, and STILL morons like this kris idiot want something “substantive.” Any more GD substantive would be debtor’s prison. It’s time to stop being “decent” about it, and give Mark the “break” he so eagerly wants and desperately needs.
ONE.
Comment by Dr. Lee — April 20th, 2005 @ 4:18 pm
35.
Dr. Lee #34
I agree that it’s -almost- time, but we still have to see what’s gonna happen with the voting issues (following the commission closely). If we get some real progress on that front, we can vote the nasty folks out in 2006 and 08, then start repealing the joke laws they put in place.
If we don’t get satisfaction on voting rules, if we don’t get full disclosure on various issues (Plame, Bolton, etc), -then- I’m with ya.. completely..
TWO
Comment by Savantster — April 20th, 2005 @ 4:26 pm
36.
Savantster - it’s “almost” time. Are you kidding? It’s so past time, that on many issues it’s too late.
How’s this for substance:
It is public record that the Bush Administration stonewalled on the 9/11 invesigation and in fact fought to prevent it in the first place. Why?
They tried to keep the August 6th Presidential Daily Brief about “Bin Laden determined to Strike within the US” a secret.
They ignored warnings from the outgoing Clinton administration that terrorism in general and Bin Laden in particular was a grave concern and they did the same when the Richard Clarke’s of the world warned that the system was “flashing red” in the summer of 01.
When the dots are connected, the picture is clear. The Bush people knew that something major was about to happen, yet they did…..nothing.
Bush stays in Crawford after the 8/6 PDB warning and he jets back to D.C. for the bogus Schiavo matter.
What more needs to be said?
Comment by Jason — April 20th, 2005 @ 5:02 pm
37.
Many thanks to kindness (??), Dr. Lee, Jay and company…you proved my point! I’m not a Repug, simply disappointed with the tone of the response. Jay, sorry bud…my ‘contribution’ is to encourage that we raise the level of discussion beyond ‘bite me’. If we want serious change, then we need serious discussion, not paranoia name-calling and bumper sticker slogans.
Comment by kris — April 20th, 2005 @ 5:12 pm
38.
Ann: NO “level of discussion” is going to change a DAMN thing. You came in here insulting people to “raise the level of discussion?”
What EXACTLY would make you happy? Kindalousy Rice and the entire Bush “administration” are a bunch of THIEVES that LIE, and I frankly don’t care if you believe it, or not. I don’t have a video taped confession from them.
You’re very welcome - you deserved every bit of it.
Jason - do I hear a “THREE"?
Comment by Dr. Lee — April 20th, 2005 @ 5:20 pm
39.
Dr. L - It’s a beautiful thing to watch, first you dig your own hole and then bury yourself…no wonder we lost and got stuck with Howard for the future. L stands for Loser. Don’t worry about making me happy, not your job.
Comment by kris — April 20th, 2005 @ 5:32 pm
40.
Ann: Thanks so much for “raising the level of discussion.”
Comment by Dr. Lee — April 20th, 2005 @ 5:36 pm
41.
Doesn’t that statute apply even more clearly to Scully’s threat to fire medicare actuary Foster if he revealed his estimate of the cost of the medicare drug benefit?
Comment by Upper West — April 20th, 2005 @ 5:43 pm
42.
kris, you are burdened by some kind of angst today, eh? Well listen up. We may have lost the election in November. But we haven’t lost our souls. Now I don’t mean that in the religious sense. I mean that in the honor and character sense. Do those things buy or mean anything with this administration? They would probably ask you what your yearly income is, how much you contributed to their party, PACS, etc and then give an answer from that.
That is my point exactly. Rather than spend time flogging ourselves, talking about stuff helps us build on tomorrow. Don’t be so down.
There is always hope (just not with this administration).
Comment by kindness — April 20th, 2005 @ 5:45 pm
43.
I think that this site is an excellent forum to toss ideas around with all walks. If we keep it civil, ask questions, give reasoned responses and differing opinions….it’s a powerful form of democracy (blogocracy?).
Kris: waste of keystrokes.
Dr. Lee: Fill me in on the meaning of One, Two, Three?
Comment by Jason — April 20th, 2005 @ 5:48 pm
44.
Jason -
I said it was time to stand and be counted (#18).
“Mark” decided that deserved an obnoxious reply (#24)
But I ain’t F***ing kidding - I ‘ve had enough of trying to reason with liars, and started counting (#34)
Savantster thinks it’s still worth while trying to get reason from zealots, but gives a tentative TWO (#35)
It sounds like you agree with me - being truthful with liars has proved pointless - we only lose more ground as the Repugs whine “Liberal press! Liberal press!” when the “liberal press” helped sell the war of conquest in Iraq. The “Liberal press” has forgotten:
Osama Bin Laden
Valery Plame
Max Cleland
Cheney’s energy task force (including Taliban representatives)
anyway…we try to be reasonable - they only get more arrogant and obnoxious. It’s time to stand up and be counted - or be ground asunder.
Comment by Dr. Lee — April 20th, 2005 @ 6:03 pm
45.
Welcome to the new Orwellian world. Only the Rovian administration could screw this all up so bad. Dont the neo-cons realize that they are only sending us into a twisted downward spiral of hate and fascism? Wasn’t it US that went to war with Germany for trying to take over other countries? Isnt that why we went to war with Iraq? All this religious re-awakening, massive deception campaigns, and name calling from both sides, is turning america’s “morals” into another bought and sold commodity for the rich and the people with power. Hey KRIS> absolute power corrupts absolutely, and last time i checked people like Condi Rice, Karl Rove, Dick Cheney, and GW Bush were the heads of the hydra. Not to mention the fact that Rove will make anyone in the government dissappear if they so much as say a nasty comment about our “furher".
Although we all know Condi is guilty of obstruction, and all these other Bush appointent numbskulls are just pieces of Bush and Rove’s lil political gambit, the public KNOWS. We see it, and we cant stop it yet, but we only have to wait till 2006 or until a few SMART republicans start to grow a conscience. Hey its allready happening with the blocking of Bolton, and the hearings for DeLay. They may get away with it now, but there will be more transgressions and they cannot keep chainging the laws and rigging the game forever. The real politicians (the ones who seriously care about why they are where they are) will eventually prevail. That or China will kick our ass.
Comment by Matt — April 20th, 2005 @ 6:31 pm
46.
Gotcha. I’m in for the Three spot then, wholeheartedly.
The people that appear to stand in the middle and ask for concessions from both sides in order to “elevate” the level of discourse just haven’t done enough reading yet. The Republicans are not screwing around, they play this game to win and they will destroy everything in their paths. I would like to continue on the theme that Dr. Lee started with his list of people/issues that the media has conveniently given short-shrift (ok, so they’ve ignored them)…and start a new list of people that I think have been nothing short of heroic in speaking truth to power:
Barbara Boxer
Richard Clarke
Joe Wilson
Paul O’Neill
Howard Dean
Siebel Edmonds
General Shinseki
Randi Rhodes
etc….
Comment by Jason — April 20th, 2005 @ 6:33 pm
47.
Yay Barbara Boxer!! Proud to have here here in CA.
Comment by Matt — April 20th, 2005 @ 6:34 pm
48.
I agree wit Maezeppa
Everyone knows that you must be standing squarely behind a man before you can stab him in the back…
Comment by Humphrey Appleby — April 20th, 2005 @ 6:57 pm
49.
“bite me kris. I stand by my 59 mil idiots statement. ”
It is a fake statistic, but don’t let that bother you.
THE LAST ELECTION WAS STOLEN.
I hope that doesn’t disturb your nightmare.
We haven’t had a legal election in five years.
28 states have no paper trail.
Diebold, ES&S, Triad – all have committed FELONIES.
John Kerry won the last election.
Al Gore won the one before him.
Unless we get our voting rights back, game over.
Quoting fake statistics in order to engage in BIGOTRY is just plain stupid.
Comment by Paul in LA — April 20th, 2005 @ 7:13 pm
50.
Why don’t Kris and Dr. Lee and friends develop some maturity and insight - not to mention some appreciation for the King’s or Queen’s English. I am not a fan of Bush - father or son - and am far left of center on issues involving human rights and limitations on government power. I do believe, though, that a ligitimate function of government is the protection of the weak from the rapacity of those holding power. Nothing is accomplished nor is anyone served by “You’re one!", “No, you’re one!” “Nuhun!”
Comment by Avi Noel — April 20th, 2005 @ 7:20 pm
51.
Kindasleezy Wheat should be in jail. Period. Along with most of this embarrasing host of morons called an administration. I’ve seen better performances at a high school play.
Comment by Black Dog — April 20th, 2005 @ 7:26 pm
52.
Some Bush defender above asked for substance. Here is substance: GM posted a billion dollar loss because they ignored the public’s demand for hybrids. Why didn’t GM bother to develop a hybrid? Because they had assurances from the Bush junta that there be plenty of oil for everyone. The public speaks, we the people. There are waiting lists for hybrids in California made by, you guessed it, our Japanese friends. So, party of W’s legacy will be the eventual bankruptcy of one of the largest corporations in the history of the planet. And, if Dopey and the boys eliminate the fillibuster, they better pray that there is never again a Democrat in the White House and a Democratic majority in Congress because they will eviscerate everything Dopey and his gang of whores did in their eight year feeding frenzy. Just sit back and watch the fun. Don’t stress out so much.
Comment by Mark Cannon — April 20th, 2005 @ 9:48 pm
53.
to the bushies out there.how many soldiers died when mr clinton was president.
Comment by dan savitsky — April 20th, 2005 @ 10:00 pm
54.
Rove-induced paranoia about “statesman” Voinovich. Do you think any of these guys really act independently? That would be refreshing, but my concern is that his “orders” were to make the outraged senator statement he did… then, as he recounted in his soliloquoy about Richard Holbrooke, he investigates the charges against Bolton, talks to Bolton, then decides the guy isn’t so bad… and then once he annoints the guy, then the other “hand wringers” like Chafee and Hagel go along with him. And it’s all part of the scheme. OR Voinovich actually showed some true courage and principles; apparently with Democrats muted at every turn, often by their own fear of red statery, our only hope is for Republicans to show some guts.
Comment by Bobbygoode — April 20th, 2005 @ 10:08 pm
55.
Mark at #52.. try this on for size
guess it matters not
soon you’ll be taxed for the amount of air you breath since the government needs to keep air clean.. Here’s a thought, how about making corperations pay some taxes? Stop giving them all kinds of loop-holes and make them pay for what they get a TON more use out of than the average American..
Comment by Savantster — April 20th, 2005 @ 10:36 pm
56.
I appologize.. my #55 above has a link to where they are trying to tax “per mile driven” instead of “per gallon of gas", based on our shifting to Hybrids soon (since we’ll be out of oil before long)
Comment by Savantster — April 20th, 2005 @ 10:38 pm
57.
#50-
You’ve added……what, besides your opinion?
If I may move on:
We need to be more militant. We need to use there strong suit against them. We need coordinated replies to the STINKING lies we hear over and over, i.e., “liberal media.” This should uniformally answered with a consistent list of media items we would LIKE to see pursued. Just interrupt any GOP windbag as soon as the magic words get said. Another good example would be “liberal lawyers,” answered with a tidy list of GOP lawyers. “Activist judges” should be answered with “rule of law.” They loved it in Florida.
Their pride is their pain.
Comment by Dr. Lee — April 20th, 2005 @ 11:42 pm
58.
Avi Neol:
EXXXXCCCUUUUUSSSSEEEE MEEEEEEEEEEE!
(I used “there” when I should have used “their.” I am but the scum under your shoe. How’s that for insight - like it now? From now on, until I feel redeemed, I am “Intern Lee.")
Comment by Dr. Lee — April 20th, 2005 @ 11:47 pm
59.
Very interesting Savantster. My concern is that there is no ‘them’ to close corporate tax loop holes. People still don’t get it. There is no government. It is ALL corporations. They are not about to raise taxes on themselves. As for getting more militant, we tried that in the ’60’s and they are still chasing us down and throwing us in prison. Remember, you don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows. Remember?? As for turning militant now, why bother? All empires end, Alexander, Napolean, Adolf, Bush. It’s time the american empire ended. Perhaps God is just after all. Let justice fall like rain from the sky. Watch the republicans destroy themselves and the country at the same time. What a legacy!!
Comment by Mark Cannon — April 21st, 2005 @ 1:16 am
60.
If you REALLY want to make a difference, instead of arguing with each other on this, or any other site, and start writing letters to the editor of your local paper, register people to vote, contribute to the state party HQ, etc.
We’re exerting an awful lot of energy on these blogs, but are we accomplishing anything, other than irritating each other?
Comment by Georgia Dem — April 21st, 2005 @ 9:04 am
61.
Georgia Dem, your point is well taken but many of us do those things anyway. This is extracurricular activity. A day-to-day ventfest if you will.
Embrace it, enjoy it, have some fun.
Comment by Jay — April 21st, 2005 @ 9:40 am
62.
I don’t mean SDS militant - not just yet, anyway. I mean shutting them up each and every time they start to spout the usual rational-discussion-ending rhetoric, such as the phrase “liberal media.”
One reason those fascists pigs have so many devotees is because they always spoke with one voice. I think a little of what’s good for the goose-step would be good for the gander.
(I’ve had several letters to the Editor printed - didn’t see any big changes. I sent money, and they didn’t spend it on a legal challenge in Ohio. We need to put it to Fox Spews and Flush Dimballs with a unified front.)
Comment by Intern Lee — April 21st, 2005 @ 9:44 am
63.
Georgia Dem
Part of our “problem” is, with the problems in 2000 which caused some concern, we started wondering if our votes actually mattered. People say “of course they do, this is America".. Ok.. so a -lot- of what happened in 2000 around the country looked ok.. it was -mostly- Florida where it came down to “stopped counting votes".
Then you have 2004.. where there is a LOT of evidence to show that the elections were totally hijacked. Several states (all with electronic voting) reported a LOT of problems.. The exit polls (used around the world as an indicator to voting problems.. NOT as a ‘predictor’ of the election like a lot of people believe) indicate a VERY HIGH probability of FRAUD in the 2004 election. Yet, no one is doing anything about that yet either. Because they (neo-cons) were able to slink in in 2000, they got bigger in 2004. Clint Curtis shows that in 2000 they were already working on it.. Also note that the -bulk- of the people against ‘paper trials’ are Repubs and neo-cons and the companies that make the machines. MOST reasonable people think paper is a GOOD idea.. will we get it? probably not for 2006 or 2008. If we don’t fix our “voting", it won’t matter how many people you bring to the polls.. a 30 second exercise by any ONE person can change all that .. flip 100s of thousands of votes (or just change names of the “winners", there’s no way to audit that either).. and without paper trails, there is NO way to verify the original votes.
you see, it’s not about “being active” anymore, it’s about our contry being hijacked by the neo-cons and right-wing fanatics. We have to step in and stop that, and soon.
Comment by Savantster — April 21st, 2005 @ 3:20 pm
64.
To get back to the original question: if she was correctly quoted, then it seems clear she is obstructing an inquiry, which generates a big: “Heavens to Mergatriod! A Bush administration official blatantly breaking the law! What a shock! It’s ALMOST as if….they run the government in secret - despite the American people instead of for the American people. Again: what a shock.”
Comment by “Just plain” Lee — April 21st, 2005 @ 6:04 pm
65.
If you haven’t already read this….I recommend that you do. It is sobering and grave, but I fear all too true:
http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/031005_globalcorp.shtml
Comment by Jason — April 21st, 2005 @ 6:05 pm
66.
OK, some fun: Did someone mention bumper stickers? Here ya go:
B-U-S-H: Beating Up Saddam Hussein
B-U-S-H: Being Unilateral Sure Hurts
B-U-S-H: Belligerence Undermines Safe Homeland
B-U-S-H: BinLaden Unearths Safe Haven
B-U-S-H: Beefing Up the Saudi Hegemony
B-U-S-H: Blatant Use of Spin and Hyperbole
B-U-S-H: Building the United States of Halliburton
Enjoy! -Tubeman
Comment by tubeman — April 21st, 2005 @ 6:26 pm
67.
“you see, it’s not about “being active” anymore, it’s about our contry being hijacked by the neo-cons and right-wing fanatics. We have to step in and stop that, and soon.”
So - now you’re saying “enough is enough"?
Jason - a very sobering read, but not that far from what my paranoid self envisioned. My question is: lot’s of people must know about this, including John Kerry and our last (and probably THE last) freely-elected President of the United States, Bill Clinton. Why do they all stay mum?
Comment by I be Lee — April 21st, 2005 @ 8:24 pm
68.
Stand up and be counted is all well and good and accomplished much in the 19th century.
The game is SO rigged now that if you marched 1,000,000 people on Washington for one week, all you’d have are alot of dead patriots and more crowding of newly built,"privatized” prisons.
All of this ties in with Peak Oil, facism, and the continuing economic extermination of what once was the middle class or as J.P. Morgan called it,
“the nigger buffer". They’ve known about oil depletion for decades and have built dozens of these new private prisons to house the “rabble”
when it comes down to out and out rebellion, debtors prisons, gas rationing, and depression.
Comment by Bruce — April 21st, 2005 @ 8:52 pm
69.
Lee, sure they know about it. Even superhawk ultra-neocon James Woolsey has recently called for conservation and investment in alternative sources of energy (that alone should be sounding the alarm). Kerry touched on the relationship between our oil consumption and having troops stationed in the Middle East long-term, but he didn’t pound that message and I imagine the Bush ads that referenced old legislation to increase the gas tax that Kerry got behind when the economy was strong kept that message at bay. The Kerry campaign did tout a plan for kicking our oil dependence, and for alternative fuels, but they were afraid to make it a prominent issue.
We must have leadership on this issue. The transition to other sources of energy MUST start now. The resistance to these changes is powerful and well-funded….but reality has to be a part of the equation…..right?
I’m terrified for my kids. The future is indeed bleak if our leaders don’t act now!
Comment by Jason — April 21st, 2005 @ 10:10 pm
70.
What difference does voter registration make in a stolen election? We have allowed a non-elected president occupy the White House for going on six years now. What further proof do you need that the system is entirely broken? You cannot work through a broken system. We figured that out when the country re-elected Tricky Dick on the eve of indictment. How do you reason with people who knowingly allowed a crook to lead them? The people who voted for Bush will not understand how wrong they were until their children are slaughtered in some foreign hell hole and the official language of America is Spanish. It’s coming folks!
Comment by Mark Cannon — April 21st, 2005 @ 10:20 pm
71.
First of all, that woman has proven that her first and only job is to cover Bush’s rear end. She got up in front of the 9-11 commission and blatantly LIED. Why she’s not in a jail cell, preferably Guantanamo Bay, is beyond me. For her lies, Bush promoted her to Secretary of State because Colin Powell wasn’t going to do another term with people he has been quoted as describing “f****** crazies,” in which I believe him to be absolutely right. And now, in addition to frightening off anyone who might have “information which could adversely affect the nomination,” Congressman Henry Waxman is now trying to find out why “Secretary Rice” is withholding data from the Annual Terrorism Report of 2004. Of course, it’s painfully obvious WHY that’s happening: it’s a report which shows although the State Department touted having the “lowest annual total of international terrorist attacks since 1969,” Secretary Rice is trying to hide the fact that the REAL numbers show a 20-YEAR-HIGH, and which proves once again that Bush and his administration is LYING TO AMERICA, and she doesn’t want her meal ticket to look bad. Too late.
Lose Bolton. Ask questions. Seek the truth.
Comment by THE SHADOWDRAGON — April 22nd, 2005 @ 6:08 am
72.
I think they put assholes like Bolton out front to take the heat of them and their criminal activities. At least we have someone in the Intel community who knows how to run a right-wing death squad. Negroponte should be in an Latin American jail. These bastards are simply out of control.
Comment by Lee — April 22nd, 2005 @ 9:58 am
73.
Well, why don’t we just wait for Herr Gonzales to order the Justice Department to investigate this? He has sworn to uphold the law, & he wouldn’t weasel out of that, would he?
Sunday, April 17, 2005
Conservative Lawmaker: DeLay Should Quit
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April 16th, 2005 3:50 pm
Conservative Lawmaker: DeLay Should Quit
By Suzanne Gamboa / Associated Press
WASHINGTON - One of Congress' most conservative members on Friday became the second House Republican to urge Majority Leader Tom DeLay to step aside because of the ethics scrutiny he's facing.
"If the majority leader were to temporarily step aside so that these trumped up charges can be dealt with in a less hostile environment, as they have proven to be an unnecessary distraction, it may be a productive move," said Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo.
Tancredo's comments come after Connecticut Rep. Chris Shays, a moderate Republican, urged DeLay to resign from his leadership position at the beginning of the week. Also, Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, the No. 3 Republican in the Senate, said DeLay needs to answer questions about his ethics.
Tancredo, elected in 1998, said he believes all charges against DeLay, R-Texas, "lack merit" and are "being leveled in the hopes of bringing him down and with him, the Republican majority."
Tancredo is known in the House for his tough stand on immigration and has 100 percent rating from the American Conservative Union for votes and his position on issues.
DeLay has been dogged by questions for months about his overseas travel, corporate fundraising in 2002 for Texas legislative campaigns, campaign payments to family members and his connections to a lobbyist now under federal investigation.
Some GOP colleagues have suggested his continuing ethics controversy is harming the GOP, while others say the criticism has been orchestrated by Democrats and their liberal allies.
DeLay has said he is eager to appear before the leaders of the House ethics committee and give "everything I have" in connection with allegations of misconduct. Spokesman Dan Allen provided a similar comment Friday and cited a list of accomplishments by House Republicans with DeLay as majority leader.
Before DeLay can meet with the ethics committee, Democrats and Republicans must resolve a deadlock over rules Republicans pushed through the House. Democrats oppose the changes.
April 16th, 2005 3:50 pm
Conservative Lawmaker: DeLay Should Quit
By Suzanne Gamboa / Associated Press
WASHINGTON - One of Congress' most conservative members on Friday became the second House Republican to urge Majority Leader Tom DeLay to step aside because of the ethics scrutiny he's facing.
"If the majority leader were to temporarily step aside so that these trumped up charges can be dealt with in a less hostile environment, as they have proven to be an unnecessary distraction, it may be a productive move," said Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo.
Tancredo's comments come after Connecticut Rep. Chris Shays, a moderate Republican, urged DeLay to resign from his leadership position at the beginning of the week. Also, Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, the No. 3 Republican in the Senate, said DeLay needs to answer questions about his ethics.
Tancredo, elected in 1998, said he believes all charges against DeLay, R-Texas, "lack merit" and are "being leveled in the hopes of bringing him down and with him, the Republican majority."
Tancredo is known in the House for his tough stand on immigration and has 100 percent rating from the American Conservative Union for votes and his position on issues.
DeLay has been dogged by questions for months about his overseas travel, corporate fundraising in 2002 for Texas legislative campaigns, campaign payments to family members and his connections to a lobbyist now under federal investigation.
Some GOP colleagues have suggested his continuing ethics controversy is harming the GOP, while others say the criticism has been orchestrated by Democrats and their liberal allies.
DeLay has said he is eager to appear before the leaders of the House ethics committee and give "everything I have" in connection with allegations of misconduct. Spokesman Dan Allen provided a similar comment Friday and cited a list of accomplishments by House Republicans with DeLay as majority leader.
Before DeLay can meet with the ethics committee, Democrats and Republicans must resolve a deadlock over rules Republicans pushed through the House. Democrats oppose the changes.
Wednesday, April 13, 2005
Negroponte 's Contra role
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Papers illustrate Negroponte’s Contra role
Nominee was active in U.S. effort, documents show
By Michael Dobbs
Updated: 9:59 p.m. ET April 11, 2005
The day after the House voted to halt all aid to rebels fighting to overthrow the Sandinista government of Nicaragua, U.S. Ambassador to Honduras John D. Negroponte urged the president's national security adviser and the CIA director to hang tough.
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The thrust of the envoy's "back channel" July 1983 message to the men running the contra war against Nicaragua was contained in a single cryptic sentence: "Hondurans believe special project is as important as ever."
"Special project" was code for the secret arming of contra rebels from bases in Honduras -- a cause championed by Negroponte, then a rising diplomatic star. In cables and memos, Negroponte made it clear that he saw the "special project" as key to the Reagan administration's strategy of rolling back communism in Central America.
• More Bush administration coverage
As Negroponte prepares for his Senate confirmation hearing today for the new post of director of national intelligence, hundreds of previously secret cables and telegrams have become available that shed new light on the most controversial episode in his four-decade diplomatic career. The documents, drawn from Negroponte's personal records as ambassador to Honduras from 1981 to 1985, were released by the State Department in response to a Freedom of Information Act request from The Washington Post.
The documents were initially declassified and provided to Negroponte in 1998, after his retirement from the Foreign Service, but the vast majority have never been made public. A State Department FOIA official said yesterday that about 100 documents from the collection are still being "processed."
Revealing glimpses
The documents offer revealing glimpses into the personality, leadership style and political attitudes of the man President Bush selected to shake up U.S. intelligence in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Negroponte's determination to reverse the Sandinista revolution in Nicaragua occasionally put him at odds with fellow envoys and with more cautious State Department bureaucrats.
"I have my doubts about a dinner at the residence for a man who is in the business of overthrowing a neighboring government," cabled U.S. Ambassador to Nicaragua Anthony Quainton, after Negroponte played host to the political leader of the contra rebels, Adolfo Calero. Quainton made it clear that he was not a fan of Negroponte's "gastronomic diplomacy."
Overall, Negroponte comes across as an exceptionally energetic, action-oriented ambassador whose anti-communist convictions led him to play down human rights abuses in Honduras, the most reliable U.S. ally in the region. There is little in the documents the State Department has released so far to support his assertion that he used "quiet diplomacy" to persuade the Honduran authorities to investigate the most egregious violations, including the mysterious disappearance of dozens of government opponents.
The contrast with his immediate predecessor, Jack R. Binns, who was recalled to Washington in the fall of 1981 to make way for Negroponte, is striking. Before departing, Binns sent several cables to Washington warning of possible "death squad" activity linked to Honduran strongman Gen. Gustavo Alvarez. Negroponte dismissed the talk of death squads and, in an October 1983 cable to Washington, emphasized Alvarez's "dedication to democracy."
The cables show that the two men typically met once a week, and sometimes several times a week. Although the Honduran military had ostensibly turned over power to a civilian government headed by President Roberto Suazo, Negroponte and the U.S. Embassy viewed Alvarez as the go-to person on security matters. The ambassador supported an April 1983 request by Alvarez for more weapons for the contra rebels, and he predicted that the size of the contra force "could be doubled in next five months if we provided necessary weapons."
Papers illustrate Negroponte’s Contra role
Nominee was active in U.S. effort, documents show
By Michael Dobbs
Updated: 9:59 p.m. ET April 11, 2005
The day after the House voted to halt all aid to rebels fighting to overthrow the Sandinista government of Nicaragua, U.S. Ambassador to Honduras John D. Negroponte urged the president's national security adviser and the CIA director to hang tough.
advertisement
The thrust of the envoy's "back channel" July 1983 message to the men running the contra war against Nicaragua was contained in a single cryptic sentence: "Hondurans believe special project is as important as ever."
"Special project" was code for the secret arming of contra rebels from bases in Honduras -- a cause championed by Negroponte, then a rising diplomatic star. In cables and memos, Negroponte made it clear that he saw the "special project" as key to the Reagan administration's strategy of rolling back communism in Central America.
• More Bush administration coverage
As Negroponte prepares for his Senate confirmation hearing today for the new post of director of national intelligence, hundreds of previously secret cables and telegrams have become available that shed new light on the most controversial episode in his four-decade diplomatic career. The documents, drawn from Negroponte's personal records as ambassador to Honduras from 1981 to 1985, were released by the State Department in response to a Freedom of Information Act request from The Washington Post.
The documents were initially declassified and provided to Negroponte in 1998, after his retirement from the Foreign Service, but the vast majority have never been made public. A State Department FOIA official said yesterday that about 100 documents from the collection are still being "processed."
Revealing glimpses
The documents offer revealing glimpses into the personality, leadership style and political attitudes of the man President Bush selected to shake up U.S. intelligence in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Negroponte's determination to reverse the Sandinista revolution in Nicaragua occasionally put him at odds with fellow envoys and with more cautious State Department bureaucrats.
"I have my doubts about a dinner at the residence for a man who is in the business of overthrowing a neighboring government," cabled U.S. Ambassador to Nicaragua Anthony Quainton, after Negroponte played host to the political leader of the contra rebels, Adolfo Calero. Quainton made it clear that he was not a fan of Negroponte's "gastronomic diplomacy."
Overall, Negroponte comes across as an exceptionally energetic, action-oriented ambassador whose anti-communist convictions led him to play down human rights abuses in Honduras, the most reliable U.S. ally in the region. There is little in the documents the State Department has released so far to support his assertion that he used "quiet diplomacy" to persuade the Honduran authorities to investigate the most egregious violations, including the mysterious disappearance of dozens of government opponents.
The contrast with his immediate predecessor, Jack R. Binns, who was recalled to Washington in the fall of 1981 to make way for Negroponte, is striking. Before departing, Binns sent several cables to Washington warning of possible "death squad" activity linked to Honduran strongman Gen. Gustavo Alvarez. Negroponte dismissed the talk of death squads and, in an October 1983 cable to Washington, emphasized Alvarez's "dedication to democracy."
The cables show that the two men typically met once a week, and sometimes several times a week. Although the Honduran military had ostensibly turned over power to a civilian government headed by President Roberto Suazo, Negroponte and the U.S. Embassy viewed Alvarez as the go-to person on security matters. The ambassador supported an April 1983 request by Alvarez for more weapons for the contra rebels, and he predicted that the size of the contra force "could be doubled in next five months if we provided necessary weapons."
Tuesday, April 12, 2005
Tom DeLay Should Resign as House Leader
Welcome to MichaelMoore.com!
April 11th, 2005 3:31 pm
Shays: DeLay Should Quit As House Leader
By Lou Kesten / Associated Press
WASHINGTON - Private GOP tensions over Tom DeLay's ethics controversy spilled into public Sunday, as a Senate leader called on DeLay to explain his actions and one House Republican demanded the majority leader's resignation.
"Tom's conduct is hurting the Republican Party, is hurting this Republican majority and it is hurting any Republican who is up for re-election," Rep. Chris Shays, R-Conn., told The Associated Press in an interview, calling for DeLay to step down as majority leader.
DeLay, R-Texas, who was admonished by the House ethics committee last year, has been dogged in recent months by new reports about his overseas travel funded by special interests, campaign payments to family members and connections to a lobbyist who is under criminal investigation.
A moderate Republican from Connecticut who has battled with his party's leadership on a number of issues, Shays said efforts by the House GOP members to change ethics rules to protect DeLay only make the party look bad.
"My party is going to have to decide whether we are going to continue to make excuses for Tom to the detriment of Republicans seeking election," Shays said.
Rick Santorum, the No. 3 Republican in the Senate, said Sunday that DeLay needs to explain his conduct to the public.
"I think he has to come forward and lay out what he did and why he did it and let the people then judge for themselves," Santorum told ABC's "This Week." "But from everything I've heard, again, from the comments and responding to those, is everything he's done was according to the law.
"Now you may not like some of the things he's done," said Santorum, who is up for re-election next year in Pennsylvania. "That's for the people of his district to decide, whether they want to approve that kind of behavior or not."
DeLay's spokesman, Dan Allen, told AP that the congressman "looks forward to the opportunity of sitting down with the ethics committee chairman and ranking member to get the facts out and to dispel the fiction and innuendo that's being launched at him by House Democrats and their liberal allies."
Responding specifically to Shays' remarks later, Allen added that DeLay's "effective leadership has helped to build and maintain the Republican majority in the House and that's exactly why liberal groups funded by George Soros have set their sights on him."
The majority leader was admonished three times last year by that committee. The committee has been in limbo since March, when its five Democrats balked at adopting Republican-developed rules.
House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said last week that the controversy was distracting DeLay from dealing with more pressing problems before Congress.
Santorum, however, said DeLay is "very effective in leading the House" and "to date, has not been compromised."
A senior Democratic senator, Christopher Dodd of Connecticut, had this advice for the Republicans who control both the House and Senate: "Be careful about how closely you embrace Mr. DeLay."
Dodd cited the new rules for the ethics committee that House Republicans rammed through in the wake of DeLay's difficulties. Those rules require a bipartisan vote before an investigation can be launched. DeLay's office also helped mount a counterattack last fall against Rep. Joel Hefley, R-Colo., who was the ethics committee chairman when it came down against DeLay.
"Unfortunately, in his particular case, there's a process that he's tried to change so they could actually reach a determination as to whether or not he's innocent or guilty of the things he's been charged with," Dodd said. "But this is not going to go away."
DeLay "becomes the poster child for a lot of the things the Democrats think are wrong about Republican leadership. As long as he's there, he's going to become a pretty good target," Dodd said on ABC.
DeLay, who took center stage in passing legislation designed to keep alive Terri Schiavo, also has found that President Bush and congressional colleagues are distancing themselves from his comments, after her death, about the judges involved in her case.
"The time will come for the men responsible for this to answer for their behavior," DeLay said, raising the prospect of impeaching members of a separate and independent branch of government. Later, he complained of "an arrogant and out of control judiciary that thumbs its nose at Congress and the president."
Bush, declining to endorse DeLay's comments, said Friday that he supports "an independent judiciary." He added, "I believe in proper checks and balances."
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist of Tennessee said last week that the judges "handled it in a fair and independent way," although he had hoped for a different result.
Democrats have said DeLay's remarks were tantamount to inciting violence against judges.
April 11th, 2005 3:31 pm
Shays: DeLay Should Quit As House Leader
By Lou Kesten / Associated Press
WASHINGTON - Private GOP tensions over Tom DeLay's ethics controversy spilled into public Sunday, as a Senate leader called on DeLay to explain his actions and one House Republican demanded the majority leader's resignation.
"Tom's conduct is hurting the Republican Party, is hurting this Republican majority and it is hurting any Republican who is up for re-election," Rep. Chris Shays, R-Conn., told The Associated Press in an interview, calling for DeLay to step down as majority leader.
DeLay, R-Texas, who was admonished by the House ethics committee last year, has been dogged in recent months by new reports about his overseas travel funded by special interests, campaign payments to family members and connections to a lobbyist who is under criminal investigation.
A moderate Republican from Connecticut who has battled with his party's leadership on a number of issues, Shays said efforts by the House GOP members to change ethics rules to protect DeLay only make the party look bad.
"My party is going to have to decide whether we are going to continue to make excuses for Tom to the detriment of Republicans seeking election," Shays said.
Rick Santorum, the No. 3 Republican in the Senate, said Sunday that DeLay needs to explain his conduct to the public.
"I think he has to come forward and lay out what he did and why he did it and let the people then judge for themselves," Santorum told ABC's "This Week." "But from everything I've heard, again, from the comments and responding to those, is everything he's done was according to the law.
"Now you may not like some of the things he's done," said Santorum, who is up for re-election next year in Pennsylvania. "That's for the people of his district to decide, whether they want to approve that kind of behavior or not."
DeLay's spokesman, Dan Allen, told AP that the congressman "looks forward to the opportunity of sitting down with the ethics committee chairman and ranking member to get the facts out and to dispel the fiction and innuendo that's being launched at him by House Democrats and their liberal allies."
Responding specifically to Shays' remarks later, Allen added that DeLay's "effective leadership has helped to build and maintain the Republican majority in the House and that's exactly why liberal groups funded by George Soros have set their sights on him."
The majority leader was admonished three times last year by that committee. The committee has been in limbo since March, when its five Democrats balked at adopting Republican-developed rules.
House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said last week that the controversy was distracting DeLay from dealing with more pressing problems before Congress.
Santorum, however, said DeLay is "very effective in leading the House" and "to date, has not been compromised."
A senior Democratic senator, Christopher Dodd of Connecticut, had this advice for the Republicans who control both the House and Senate: "Be careful about how closely you embrace Mr. DeLay."
Dodd cited the new rules for the ethics committee that House Republicans rammed through in the wake of DeLay's difficulties. Those rules require a bipartisan vote before an investigation can be launched. DeLay's office also helped mount a counterattack last fall against Rep. Joel Hefley, R-Colo., who was the ethics committee chairman when it came down against DeLay.
"Unfortunately, in his particular case, there's a process that he's tried to change so they could actually reach a determination as to whether or not he's innocent or guilty of the things he's been charged with," Dodd said. "But this is not going to go away."
DeLay "becomes the poster child for a lot of the things the Democrats think are wrong about Republican leadership. As long as he's there, he's going to become a pretty good target," Dodd said on ABC.
DeLay, who took center stage in passing legislation designed to keep alive Terri Schiavo, also has found that President Bush and congressional colleagues are distancing themselves from his comments, after her death, about the judges involved in her case.
"The time will come for the men responsible for this to answer for their behavior," DeLay said, raising the prospect of impeaching members of a separate and independent branch of government. Later, he complained of "an arrogant and out of control judiciary that thumbs its nose at Congress and the president."
Bush, declining to endorse DeLay's comments, said Friday that he supports "an independent judiciary." He added, "I believe in proper checks and balances."
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist of Tennessee said last week that the judges "handled it in a fair and independent way," although he had hoped for a different result.
Democrats have said DeLay's remarks were tantamount to inciting violence against judges.
Wednesday, April 06, 2005
jbcard's Xanga Site
April 6, 2005
Congress Should Fire Tom Delay
By Baiano
Congress is waisting time with Schiavo related issues, and not doing its job like to fire the Republican Majority Leader of the House Tom Delay.
The news are there about Tom Delay fund raising scandals involving receiving money from a indian tribe in Texas to oil deals involving Russia, South Korea and even the Taliban (Representatives from Taliban met with Tom Delay in SugarLand, Texas).
Tom Delay and the Bush family crime syndicate do not care about the American people. While the big oil companies are having record profit year we are paying about $2.65 minimum here in California. There are 50 million people without health insurance. The education system is getting worse by the day. The record debt is sinking the dollar and causing the interest rates to start climbing.
April 6, 2005
Congress Should Fire Tom Delay
By Baiano
Congress is waisting time with Schiavo related issues, and not doing its job like to fire the Republican Majority Leader of the House Tom Delay.
The news are there about Tom Delay fund raising scandals involving receiving money from a indian tribe in Texas to oil deals involving Russia, South Korea and even the Taliban (Representatives from Taliban met with Tom Delay in SugarLand, Texas).
Tom Delay and the Bush family crime syndicate do not care about the American people. While the big oil companies are having record profit year we are paying about $2.65 minimum here in California. There are 50 million people without health insurance. The education system is getting worse by the day. The record debt is sinking the dollar and causing the interest rates to start climbing.
Saturday, March 26, 2005
Our Leader: Tom Delay
Mozilla Firefox Start Page
Tom Delay and Bill Frist speech
via American United (our thanks to AU)
The Family Research Council, a Washington-based Religious Right group, held a closed-door “Washington Briefing” March 17-19, 2005. During the event, House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas) and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) addressed attendees and pledged that Republican leaders in Congress would work to implement the Religious Right’s controversial political agenda...read on
Delay also blamed LBJ for making Churches stay out of politics. As if they actually do.
Audio- it's 20 min. Delay comes in about the midpoint
Ezra: So in three days, he went from concerned, to outraged, all the way to issuing press releases from a land entirely of his imagination. But Terry was still slipping from the headlines! How dare she!? So here's Tom on the 21st:
One thing that God has brought to us is Terri Schiavo, to help elevate the visibility of what is going on in America," Mr. DeLay told a conference organized by the Family Research Council, a conservative Christian group. A recording of the event was provided by the advocacy organization Americans United for Separation of Church and State.
"This is exactly the issue that is going on in America, of attacks against the conservative movement, against me and against many others," Mr. DeLay said.
Mr. DeLay complained that "the other side" had figured out how "to defeat the conservative movement," by waging personal attacks, linking with liberal organizations and persuading the national news media to report the story. He charged that "the whole syndicate" was "a huge nationwide concerted effort to destroy everything we believe in." read on
Tom sure sounds a lot like Bill O'Reilly all of a sudden. "They are after me!"
Think Progress has more: Tom Delay Uncensored
Tom Delay and Bill Frist speech
via American United (our thanks to AU)
The Family Research Council, a Washington-based Religious Right group, held a closed-door “Washington Briefing” March 17-19, 2005. During the event, House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas) and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) addressed attendees and pledged that Republican leaders in Congress would work to implement the Religious Right’s controversial political agenda...read on
Delay also blamed LBJ for making Churches stay out of politics. As if they actually do.
Audio- it's 20 min. Delay comes in about the midpoint
Ezra: So in three days, he went from concerned, to outraged, all the way to issuing press releases from a land entirely of his imagination. But Terry was still slipping from the headlines! How dare she!? So here's Tom on the 21st:
One thing that God has brought to us is Terri Schiavo, to help elevate the visibility of what is going on in America," Mr. DeLay told a conference organized by the Family Research Council, a conservative Christian group. A recording of the event was provided by the advocacy organization Americans United for Separation of Church and State.
"This is exactly the issue that is going on in America, of attacks against the conservative movement, against me and against many others," Mr. DeLay said.
Mr. DeLay complained that "the other side" had figured out how "to defeat the conservative movement," by waging personal attacks, linking with liberal organizations and persuading the national news media to report the story. He charged that "the whole syndicate" was "a huge nationwide concerted effort to destroy everything we believe in." read on
Tom sure sounds a lot like Bill O'Reilly all of a sudden. "They are after me!"
Think Progress has more: Tom Delay Uncensored
Monday, March 14, 2005
Bloglines | My Feeds
Bloglines | My Feeds
March 14th, 2005 1:58 pm
Under Bush, a New Age of Prepackaged TV News
By David Barstow and Robin Stein / New York Times
It is the kind of TV news coverage every president covets.
"Thank you, Bush. Thank you, U.S.A.," a jubilant Iraqi-American told a camera crew in Kansas City for a segment about reaction to the fall of Baghdad. A second report told of "another success" in the Bush administration's "drive to strengthen aviation security"; the reporter called it "one of the most remarkable campaigns in aviation history." A third segment, broadcast in January, described the administration's determination to open markets for American farmers.
To a viewer, each report looked like any other 90-second segment on the local news. In fact, the federal government produced all three. The report from Kansas City was made by the State Department. The "reporter" covering airport safety was actually a public relations professional working under a false name for the Transportation Security Administration. The farming segment was done by the Agriculture Department's office of communications.
Under the Bush administration, the federal government has aggressively used a well-established tool of public relations: the prepackaged, ready-to-serve news report that major corporations have long distributed to TV stations to pitch everything from headache remedies to auto insurance. In all, at least 20 federal agencies, including the Defense Department and the Census Bureau, have made and distributed hundreds of television news segments in the past four years, records and interviews show. Many were subsequently broadcast on local stations across the country without any acknowledgement of the government's role in their production.
This winter, Washington has been roiled by revelations that a handful of columnists wrote in support of administration policies without disclosing they had accepted payments from the government. But the administration's efforts to generate positive news coverage have been considerably more pervasive than previously known. At the same time, records and interviews suggest widespread complicity or negligence by television stations, given industry ethics standards that discourage the broadcast of prepackaged news segments from any outside group without revealing the source.
Federal agencies are forthright with broadcasters about the origin of the news segments they distribute. The reports themselves, though, are designed to fit seamlessly into the typical local news broadcast. In most cases, the "reporters" are careful not to state in the segment that they work for the government. Their reports generally avoid overt ideological appeals. Instead, the government's news-making apparatus has produced a quiet drumbeat of broadcasts describing a vigilant and compassionate administration.
Some reports were produced to support the administration's most cherished policy objectives, like regime change in Iraq or Medicare reform. Others focused on less prominent matters, like the administration's efforts to offer free after-school tutoring, its campaign to curb childhood obesity, its initiatives to preserve forests and wetlands, its plans to fight computer viruses, even its attempts to fight holiday drunken driving. They often feature "interviews" with senior administration officials in which questions are scripted and answers rehearsed. Critics, though, are excluded, as are any hints of mismanagement, waste or controversy.
Some of the segments were broadcast in some of nation's largest television markets, including New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Dallas and Atlanta.
An examination of government-produced news reports offers a look inside a world where the traditional lines between public relations and journalism have become tangled, where local anchors introduce prepackaged segments with "suggested" lead-ins written by public relations experts. It is a world where government-produced reports disappear into a maze of satellite transmissions, Web portals, syndicated news programs and network feeds, only to emerge cleansed on the other side as "independent" journalism.
It is also a world where all participants benefit.
Local affiliates are spared the expense of digging up original material. Public relations firms secure government contracts worth millions of dollars. The major networks, which help distribute the releases, collect fees from the government agencies that produce segments and the affiliates that show them. The administration, meanwhile, gets out an unfiltered message, delivered in the guise of traditional reporting.
The practice, which also occurred in the Clinton administration, is continuing despite President Bush's recent call for a clearer demarcation between journalism and government publicity efforts. "There needs to be a nice independent relationship between the White House and the press," Mr. Bush told reporters in January, explaining why his administration would no longer pay pundits to support his policies.
In interviews, though, press officers for several federal agencies said the president's prohibition did not apply to government-made television news segments, also known as video news releases. They described the segments as factual, politically neutral and useful to viewers. They insisted that there was no similarity to the case of Armstrong Williams, a conservative columnist who promoted the administration's chief education initiative, the No Child Left Behind Act, without disclosing $240,000 in payments from the Education Department.
What is more, these officials argued, it is the responsibility of television news directors to inform viewers that a segment about the government was in fact written by the government. "Talk to the television stations that ran it without attribution," said William A. Pierce, spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services. "This is not our problem. We can't be held responsible for their actions."
Yet in three separate opinions in the past year, the Government Accountability Office, an investigative arm of Congress that studies the federal government and its expenditures, has held that government-made news segments may constitute improper "covert propaganda" even if their origin is made clear to the television stations. The point, the office said, is whether viewers know the origin. Last month, in its most recent finding, the G.A.O. said federal agencies may not produce prepackaged news reports "that conceal or do not clearly identify for the television viewing audience that the agency was the source of those materials."
It is not certain, though, whether the office's pronouncements will have much practical effect. Although a few federal agencies have stopped making television news segments, others continue. And on Friday, the Justice Department and the Office of Management and Budget circulated a memorandum instructing all executive branch agencies to ignore the G.A.O. findings. The memorandum said the G.A.O. failed to distinguish between covert propaganda and "purely informational" news segments made by the government. Such informational segments are legal, the memorandum said, whether or not an agency's role in producing them is disclosed to viewers.
Even if agencies do disclose their role, those efforts can easily be undone in a broadcaster's editing room. Some news organizations, for example, simply identify the government's "reporter" as one of their own and then edit out any phrase suggesting the segment was not of their making.
So in a recent segment produced by the Agriculture Department, the agency's narrator ended the report by saying "In Princess Anne, Maryland, I'm Pat O'Leary reporting for the U.S. Department of Agriculture." Yet AgDay, a syndicated farm news program that is shown on some 160 stations, simply introduced the segment as being by "AgDay's Pat O'Leary." The final sentence was then trimmed to "In Princess Anne, Maryland, I'm Pat O'Leary reporting."
Brian Conrady, executive producer of AgDay, defended the changes. "We can clip 'Department of Agriculture' at our choosing," he said. "The material we get from the U.S.D.A., if we choose to air it and how we choose to air it is our choice."
March 14th, 2005 1:58 pm
Under Bush, a New Age of Prepackaged TV News
By David Barstow and Robin Stein / New York Times
It is the kind of TV news coverage every president covets.
"Thank you, Bush. Thank you, U.S.A.," a jubilant Iraqi-American told a camera crew in Kansas City for a segment about reaction to the fall of Baghdad. A second report told of "another success" in the Bush administration's "drive to strengthen aviation security"; the reporter called it "one of the most remarkable campaigns in aviation history." A third segment, broadcast in January, described the administration's determination to open markets for American farmers.
To a viewer, each report looked like any other 90-second segment on the local news. In fact, the federal government produced all three. The report from Kansas City was made by the State Department. The "reporter" covering airport safety was actually a public relations professional working under a false name for the Transportation Security Administration. The farming segment was done by the Agriculture Department's office of communications.
Under the Bush administration, the federal government has aggressively used a well-established tool of public relations: the prepackaged, ready-to-serve news report that major corporations have long distributed to TV stations to pitch everything from headache remedies to auto insurance. In all, at least 20 federal agencies, including the Defense Department and the Census Bureau, have made and distributed hundreds of television news segments in the past four years, records and interviews show. Many were subsequently broadcast on local stations across the country without any acknowledgement of the government's role in their production.
This winter, Washington has been roiled by revelations that a handful of columnists wrote in support of administration policies without disclosing they had accepted payments from the government. But the administration's efforts to generate positive news coverage have been considerably more pervasive than previously known. At the same time, records and interviews suggest widespread complicity or negligence by television stations, given industry ethics standards that discourage the broadcast of prepackaged news segments from any outside group without revealing the source.
Federal agencies are forthright with broadcasters about the origin of the news segments they distribute. The reports themselves, though, are designed to fit seamlessly into the typical local news broadcast. In most cases, the "reporters" are careful not to state in the segment that they work for the government. Their reports generally avoid overt ideological appeals. Instead, the government's news-making apparatus has produced a quiet drumbeat of broadcasts describing a vigilant and compassionate administration.
Some reports were produced to support the administration's most cherished policy objectives, like regime change in Iraq or Medicare reform. Others focused on less prominent matters, like the administration's efforts to offer free after-school tutoring, its campaign to curb childhood obesity, its initiatives to preserve forests and wetlands, its plans to fight computer viruses, even its attempts to fight holiday drunken driving. They often feature "interviews" with senior administration officials in which questions are scripted and answers rehearsed. Critics, though, are excluded, as are any hints of mismanagement, waste or controversy.
Some of the segments were broadcast in some of nation's largest television markets, including New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Dallas and Atlanta.
An examination of government-produced news reports offers a look inside a world where the traditional lines between public relations and journalism have become tangled, where local anchors introduce prepackaged segments with "suggested" lead-ins written by public relations experts. It is a world where government-produced reports disappear into a maze of satellite transmissions, Web portals, syndicated news programs and network feeds, only to emerge cleansed on the other side as "independent" journalism.
It is also a world where all participants benefit.
Local affiliates are spared the expense of digging up original material. Public relations firms secure government contracts worth millions of dollars. The major networks, which help distribute the releases, collect fees from the government agencies that produce segments and the affiliates that show them. The administration, meanwhile, gets out an unfiltered message, delivered in the guise of traditional reporting.
The practice, which also occurred in the Clinton administration, is continuing despite President Bush's recent call for a clearer demarcation between journalism and government publicity efforts. "There needs to be a nice independent relationship between the White House and the press," Mr. Bush told reporters in January, explaining why his administration would no longer pay pundits to support his policies.
In interviews, though, press officers for several federal agencies said the president's prohibition did not apply to government-made television news segments, also known as video news releases. They described the segments as factual, politically neutral and useful to viewers. They insisted that there was no similarity to the case of Armstrong Williams, a conservative columnist who promoted the administration's chief education initiative, the No Child Left Behind Act, without disclosing $240,000 in payments from the Education Department.
What is more, these officials argued, it is the responsibility of television news directors to inform viewers that a segment about the government was in fact written by the government. "Talk to the television stations that ran it without attribution," said William A. Pierce, spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services. "This is not our problem. We can't be held responsible for their actions."
Yet in three separate opinions in the past year, the Government Accountability Office, an investigative arm of Congress that studies the federal government and its expenditures, has held that government-made news segments may constitute improper "covert propaganda" even if their origin is made clear to the television stations. The point, the office said, is whether viewers know the origin. Last month, in its most recent finding, the G.A.O. said federal agencies may not produce prepackaged news reports "that conceal or do not clearly identify for the television viewing audience that the agency was the source of those materials."
It is not certain, though, whether the office's pronouncements will have much practical effect. Although a few federal agencies have stopped making television news segments, others continue. And on Friday, the Justice Department and the Office of Management and Budget circulated a memorandum instructing all executive branch agencies to ignore the G.A.O. findings. The memorandum said the G.A.O. failed to distinguish between covert propaganda and "purely informational" news segments made by the government. Such informational segments are legal, the memorandum said, whether or not an agency's role in producing them is disclosed to viewers.
Even if agencies do disclose their role, those efforts can easily be undone in a broadcaster's editing room. Some news organizations, for example, simply identify the government's "reporter" as one of their own and then edit out any phrase suggesting the segment was not of their making.
So in a recent segment produced by the Agriculture Department, the agency's narrator ended the report by saying "In Princess Anne, Maryland, I'm Pat O'Leary reporting for the U.S. Department of Agriculture." Yet AgDay, a syndicated farm news program that is shown on some 160 stations, simply introduced the segment as being by "AgDay's Pat O'Leary." The final sentence was then trimmed to "In Princess Anne, Maryland, I'm Pat O'Leary reporting."
Brian Conrady, executive producer of AgDay, defended the changes. "We can clip 'Department of Agriculture' at our choosing," he said. "The material we get from the U.S.D.A., if we choose to air it and how we choose to air it is our choice."
Saturday, March 12, 2005
So Much for the New Bush Economy
Bloglines | My Feeds
Turning Chinese
So Much for the New Bush Economy
By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS
The February payroll jobs figures released last Friday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics show a continuation of America's descent into a third world service economy.
The Bush administration cheered the creation of 229,000 private sector jobs (which still leaves Bush with a net private sector job loss during his reign). However, once we look at the details, the joy vanishes: 174,000 of the jobs, or 76% of the total, are in nontradable services.
Administrative and waste services (largely temporary help and employment services) account for 61,000 or 35% of the new service jobs. The remainder are accounted for by construction (30,000), retail trade (30,000), healthcare and social assistance (27,000), and waitresses and bar tenders (27,000).
The US has apparently lost the ability to create high productivity, high value-added jobs in tradable goods and services. The ladders of upward mobility are being dismantled by offshore production for home markets and outsourcing of knowledge jobs.
The BLS reports that the number of employed US technical workers has fallen by 221,000 in six major computer and engineering job classifications during 2000-2004. The largest drops were suffered by computer programmers, followed by electrical and electronics engineers, computer scientists and systems analysts.
So much for the new economy that economists promised would take the place of the lost manufacturing economy.
America's remaining job market is domestic nontradable services. While India and China develop first world job markets, the US labor market takes on the characteristics of a third world work force. Only jobs that cannot be outsourced are growing.
The Bush economy has seen a loss of 2.8 million manufacturing jobs, a rise in the unemployment rate of 1.2 percentage points, and a stagnation in real weekly earnings.
How bad will things have to get before economists realize that outsourced jobs are not being replaced? Indeed, many American companies are ceasing to have any presence in the US except for a sales force.
Cisco's CEO, John Chambers, declared recently: "What we're trying to do is outline an entire strategy of becoming a Chinese company."
Cisco is establishing a new R&D center in Shanghai. The US corporation manufactures $5 billion of products in China where it employes 10,000 people.
That is just one company, and there are many doing the same thing. The result is abandonment of the American work force by American corporations. Little wonder the Bush administration is the first administration in 70 years to have a net loss of private sector jobs.
If one US company or a few move offshore, their profits improve and consumer prices are lower. However, when work in general moves offshore, American lose the incomes associated with the production of the goods they consume. Domestic production is turned into imports, with the result that America draws down its accumulated wealth in order to pay for the imports on which it is dependent.
The dollar's value and status as reserve currency cannot forever stand the trade and budget deficits that are now part and parcel of America's economic policy.
Unless there are major changes soon, America's economic future is a third world work force with a banana democracy's worthless currency.
Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. He was Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal editorial page and Contributing Editor of National Review. He is coauthor of The Tyranny of Good Intentions.He can be reached at: pcroberts@postmark.net
Turning Chinese
So Much for the New Bush Economy
By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS
The February payroll jobs figures released last Friday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics show a continuation of America's descent into a third world service economy.
The Bush administration cheered the creation of 229,000 private sector jobs (which still leaves Bush with a net private sector job loss during his reign). However, once we look at the details, the joy vanishes: 174,000 of the jobs, or 76% of the total, are in nontradable services.
Administrative and waste services (largely temporary help and employment services) account for 61,000 or 35% of the new service jobs. The remainder are accounted for by construction (30,000), retail trade (30,000), healthcare and social assistance (27,000), and waitresses and bar tenders (27,000).
The US has apparently lost the ability to create high productivity, high value-added jobs in tradable goods and services. The ladders of upward mobility are being dismantled by offshore production for home markets and outsourcing of knowledge jobs.
The BLS reports that the number of employed US technical workers has fallen by 221,000 in six major computer and engineering job classifications during 2000-2004. The largest drops were suffered by computer programmers, followed by electrical and electronics engineers, computer scientists and systems analysts.
So much for the new economy that economists promised would take the place of the lost manufacturing economy.
America's remaining job market is domestic nontradable services. While India and China develop first world job markets, the US labor market takes on the characteristics of a third world work force. Only jobs that cannot be outsourced are growing.
The Bush economy has seen a loss of 2.8 million manufacturing jobs, a rise in the unemployment rate of 1.2 percentage points, and a stagnation in real weekly earnings.
How bad will things have to get before economists realize that outsourced jobs are not being replaced? Indeed, many American companies are ceasing to have any presence in the US except for a sales force.
Cisco's CEO, John Chambers, declared recently: "What we're trying to do is outline an entire strategy of becoming a Chinese company."
Cisco is establishing a new R&D center in Shanghai. The US corporation manufactures $5 billion of products in China where it employes 10,000 people.
That is just one company, and there are many doing the same thing. The result is abandonment of the American work force by American corporations. Little wonder the Bush administration is the first administration in 70 years to have a net loss of private sector jobs.
If one US company or a few move offshore, their profits improve and consumer prices are lower. However, when work in general moves offshore, American lose the incomes associated with the production of the goods they consume. Domestic production is turned into imports, with the result that America draws down its accumulated wealth in order to pay for the imports on which it is dependent.
The dollar's value and status as reserve currency cannot forever stand the trade and budget deficits that are now part and parcel of America's economic policy.
Unless there are major changes soon, America's economic future is a third world work force with a banana democracy's worthless currency.
Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. He was Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal editorial page and Contributing Editor of National Review. He is coauthor of The Tyranny of Good Intentions.He can be reached at: pcroberts@postmark.net
Bankaruptcy Reform
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Dear Senator,
I am very disappointed with the Democratic senators like you who vote for the “Bankruptcy Reform”. I know that you guys need money for your campaigns, therefore you took money from the credit card companies like MBNA, etc. It is a shame on what is happening in this country:
Bush and the “Neocons” with the help of Democrats are after all the poor people, minority, single mothers, elderly, etc. Bush is cutting all kinds of Social programs in his budget proposal, trying to dismantle Social-Security, doing nothing about Medicare, Health Insurance (About 45 million Americans do not have it). All the Bush wants is to please the big companies. Gas price is hitting record highs. The oil companies hah record profits last year.
I think we should have another party that stands for the people.
Regards,
John Kard
Dear Senator,
I am very disappointed with the Democratic senators like you who vote for the “Bankruptcy Reform”. I know that you guys need money for your campaigns, therefore you took money from the credit card companies like MBNA, etc. It is a shame on what is happening in this country:
Bush and the “Neocons” with the help of Democrats are after all the poor people, minority, single mothers, elderly, etc. Bush is cutting all kinds of Social programs in his budget proposal, trying to dismantle Social-Security, doing nothing about Medicare, Health Insurance (About 45 million Americans do not have it). All the Bush wants is to please the big companies. Gas price is hitting record highs. The oil companies hah record profits last year.
I think we should have another party that stands for the people.
Regards,
John Kard
Saturday, March 05, 2005
Deficits and Deceit
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Deficits and Deceit
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: March 4, 2005
Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times
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Four years ago, Alan Greenspan urged Congress to cut taxes, asserting that the federal government was in imminent danger of paying off too much debt.
On Wednesday the Fed chairman warned Congress of the opposite fiscal danger: he asserted that there would be large budget deficits for the foreseeable future, leading to an unsustainable rise in federal debt. But he counseled against reversing the tax cuts, calling instead for cuts in Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.
Does anyone still take Mr. Greenspan's pose as a nonpartisan font of wisdom seriously?
When Mr. Greenspan made his contorted argument for tax cuts back in 2001, his reputation made it hard for many observers to admit the obvious: he was mainly looking for some way to do the Bush administration a political favor. But there's no reason to be taken in by his equally weak, contorted argument against reversing those cuts today.
To put Mr. Greenspan's game of fiscal three-card monte in perspective, remember that the push for Social Security privatization is only part of the right's strategy for dismantling the New Deal and the Great Society. The other big piece of that strategy is the use of tax cuts to "starve the beast."
Until the 1970's conservatives tended to be open about their disdain for Social Security and Medicare. But honesty was bad politics, because voters value those programs.
So conservative intellectuals proposed a bait-and-switch strategy: First, advocate tax cuts, using whatever tactics you think may work - supply-side economics, inflated budget projections, whatever. Then use the resulting deficits to argue for slashing government spending.
And that's the story of the last four years. In 2001, President Bush and Mr. Greenspan justified tax cuts with sunny predictions that the budget would remain comfortably in surplus. But Mr. Bush's advisers knew that the tax cuts would probably cause budget problems, and welcomed the prospect.
In fact, Mr. Bush celebrated the budget's initial slide into deficit. In the summer of 2001 he called plunging federal revenue "incredibly positive news" because it would "put a straitjacket" on federal spending.
To keep that straitjacket on, however, those who sold tax cuts with the assurance that they were easily affordable must convince the public that the cuts can't be reversed now that those assurances have proved false. And Mr. Greenspan has once again tried to come to the president's aid, insisting this week that we should deal with deficits "primarily, if not wholly," by slashing Social Security and Medicare because tax increases would "pose significant risks to economic growth."
Really? America prospered for half a century under a level of federal taxes higher than the one we face today. According to the administration's own estimates, Mr. Bush's second term will see the lowest tax take as a percentage of G.D.P. since the Truman administration. And don't forget that President Clinton's 1993 tax increase ushered in an economic boom. Why, exactly, are tax increases out of the question?
O.K., enough about Mr. Greenspan. The real news is the growing evidence that the political theory behind the Bush tax cuts was as wrong as the economic theory.
According to starve-the-beast doctrine, right-wing politicians can use the big deficits generated by tax cuts as an excuse to slash social insurance programs. Mr. Bush's advisers thought that it would prove especially easy to sell benefit cuts in the context of Social Security privatization because the president could pretend that a plan that sharply cut benefits would actually be good for workers.
But the theory isn't working. As soon as voters heard that privatization would involve benefit cuts, support for Social Security "reform" plunged. Another sign of the theory's falsity: across the nation, Republican governors, finding that voters really want adequate public services, are talking about tax increases.
The best bet now is that Mr. Bush will manage to make the poor suffer, but fail to make a dent in the great middle-class entitlement programs.
And the consequence of the failure of the starve-the-beast theory is a looming fiscal crisis - Mr. Greenspan isn't wrong about that. The middle class won't give up programs that are essential to its financial security; the right won't give up tax cuts that it sold on false pretenses. The only question now is when foreign investors, who have financed our deficits so far, will decide to pull the plug.
E-mail: krugman@nytimes.com
Bob Herbert is on vacation.
Deficits and Deceit
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: March 4, 2005
Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times
ARTICLE TOOLS
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.Paul Krugman
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1.
Op-Ed Columnist: Deficits and Deceit
2.
Strivers Sharpen No. 2's for Different College Test
3.
36 Hours: Old San Juan, P.R.
4.
Journeys: In Death Valley, a Technicolor Season
5.
Violent New Front in Drug War Opens on the Canadian Border
Go to Complete List
Four years ago, Alan Greenspan urged Congress to cut taxes, asserting that the federal government was in imminent danger of paying off too much debt.
On Wednesday the Fed chairman warned Congress of the opposite fiscal danger: he asserted that there would be large budget deficits for the foreseeable future, leading to an unsustainable rise in federal debt. But he counseled against reversing the tax cuts, calling instead for cuts in Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.
Does anyone still take Mr. Greenspan's pose as a nonpartisan font of wisdom seriously?
When Mr. Greenspan made his contorted argument for tax cuts back in 2001, his reputation made it hard for many observers to admit the obvious: he was mainly looking for some way to do the Bush administration a political favor. But there's no reason to be taken in by his equally weak, contorted argument against reversing those cuts today.
To put Mr. Greenspan's game of fiscal three-card monte in perspective, remember that the push for Social Security privatization is only part of the right's strategy for dismantling the New Deal and the Great Society. The other big piece of that strategy is the use of tax cuts to "starve the beast."
Until the 1970's conservatives tended to be open about their disdain for Social Security and Medicare. But honesty was bad politics, because voters value those programs.
So conservative intellectuals proposed a bait-and-switch strategy: First, advocate tax cuts, using whatever tactics you think may work - supply-side economics, inflated budget projections, whatever. Then use the resulting deficits to argue for slashing government spending.
And that's the story of the last four years. In 2001, President Bush and Mr. Greenspan justified tax cuts with sunny predictions that the budget would remain comfortably in surplus. But Mr. Bush's advisers knew that the tax cuts would probably cause budget problems, and welcomed the prospect.
In fact, Mr. Bush celebrated the budget's initial slide into deficit. In the summer of 2001 he called plunging federal revenue "incredibly positive news" because it would "put a straitjacket" on federal spending.
To keep that straitjacket on, however, those who sold tax cuts with the assurance that they were easily affordable must convince the public that the cuts can't be reversed now that those assurances have proved false. And Mr. Greenspan has once again tried to come to the president's aid, insisting this week that we should deal with deficits "primarily, if not wholly," by slashing Social Security and Medicare because tax increases would "pose significant risks to economic growth."
Really? America prospered for half a century under a level of federal taxes higher than the one we face today. According to the administration's own estimates, Mr. Bush's second term will see the lowest tax take as a percentage of G.D.P. since the Truman administration. And don't forget that President Clinton's 1993 tax increase ushered in an economic boom. Why, exactly, are tax increases out of the question?
O.K., enough about Mr. Greenspan. The real news is the growing evidence that the political theory behind the Bush tax cuts was as wrong as the economic theory.
According to starve-the-beast doctrine, right-wing politicians can use the big deficits generated by tax cuts as an excuse to slash social insurance programs. Mr. Bush's advisers thought that it would prove especially easy to sell benefit cuts in the context of Social Security privatization because the president could pretend that a plan that sharply cut benefits would actually be good for workers.
But the theory isn't working. As soon as voters heard that privatization would involve benefit cuts, support for Social Security "reform" plunged. Another sign of the theory's falsity: across the nation, Republican governors, finding that voters really want adequate public services, are talking about tax increases.
The best bet now is that Mr. Bush will manage to make the poor suffer, but fail to make a dent in the great middle-class entitlement programs.
And the consequence of the failure of the starve-the-beast theory is a looming fiscal crisis - Mr. Greenspan isn't wrong about that. The middle class won't give up programs that are essential to its financial security; the right won't give up tax cuts that it sold on false pretenses. The only question now is when foreign investors, who have financed our deficits so far, will decide to pull the plug.
E-mail: krugman@nytimes.com
Bob Herbert is on vacation.
Jeff Gannon
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Thursday, March 03, 2005
What Jeff Gannon Means to You, and What Gannongate Means to the Future of America
An ADVOCATE EDITORIAL
If a man is imbued with even a modicum of inquisitiveness, there will come a point in his workaday march of weeks and years in which he demands answers to all the minute yet terrifically important questions: How does a faucet work? Why does an engine start when it turns over? What is an annuity? When is it financially beneficial to me and my family to cancel the collision insurance on the car?
Nor is this inclination to question, and this expectation of answer, merely a phenomenon of the aged or middle-aged. Children, too, as writers across the generations have famously written, wonder about for answers to their most pressing questions at least as much if not more than their elders: Why the tides? Why the sunrise in the east? Why frogs? Why fireflies?
Liberalism calls out to our inquisitive nature, both the agile brand of curiosity we develop in childhood, and the heavy-set elephant of doubt we seem to garage in our later years: the will to know, the drive to discover, the imperative to get it right. It is no less central a tenet of our humanity than is our tendency to be fallible, to be incredulous, to be base, to be something less than sincere about who we are and what we want from those we love.
Conservatism, at one time, may have done much the same for our baser, yet no less deeply-held and deeply-felt instincts: the urge against unbridled advance; the sweetness of sentiment; the nostalgia for never-was or never-again.
There is, indeed, something to be said for the human race not getting ahead of itself, for ensuring our grasp keeps pace with our reach--every bit as much as there is something to be said for advancing the causes of justice and knowledge with no more trepidation or delay than the human spirit must, by its own intemperate nature, from time to time allow.
Modern conservatism--which would largely, to the ear of true conservatives like Theodore Roosevelt, sound a lot like that shrieking bastard-child, "neo-conservatism"--has in the last forty years come to root itself in two opposing yet oddly harmonious principles: the death of reason and the death of religion. Only where science fails, and the dynamic, almost cellular movement of God in the hearts of men flags, can the Golden Age of Men encroach.
Strip malls.
Social security privatization. Fast food. Denuding the wilderness.
Industrialization without accountability.
Dog eat dog eat dog eat its own tail.
Time was when we knew the earth's atmosphere was damaged. We knew global temperatures were rising at an alarming pace, several degrees warmer on average, this year, than seventy years ago. We knew not because someone simply told us it was so, but because someone had proven it was so, and the personal courage that demonstrative process revealed to us--someone believing in something so much that getting it right through proofs and science could actually matter--emboldened and deepened our sense of knowledge.
That is, we knew what we knew not merely because we knew it, but because we knew it demonstrably and palpably true.
True not simply because we had some small faith in the idea of it being true, or just a child's elusive desire for that, but because we had the fortitude and wherewithal to bring an idea to bear--to light, to truth, to understanding--through both the laws of physics and the laws of men.
The scientific method. Peer review. Publication. Dissemination.
Lecture halls. Question and answer sessions. Conventions.
Conferences. Credentialing of scientists and analysts.
The Academy. Graduate students. Dissertations.
Dilemma, query, thesis, diagnosis, resolution, prognosis, logic, rationality, conclusion.
The Bush Administration, in practiced and professional form, took this bright splay of human ingenuity, this interplay between the scientific community and the lay community--man's supposition, made in faith, coupled with man's integrity, in seeking proof--and snuffed it out right quick.
Suddenly we were told that science was at odds with itself, it did not know what it had purported to know, it could no longer tell what it had purportedly already told in lectures, in studies, in publications, in presentations, in charts, in data, in volumes and volumes of accumulated wisdom.
The horse was put back in the barn.
The waters reversed course and flowed back under the bridge.
The ship retreated to its dock.
Team Bush had found a scientist or two, the renegades and rogues and used car salesmen of their profession, to say those things neo-conservative Team Bush wanted or needed so desperately to hear: we (said the renegades and rogues) the gathered purveyors of formerly indisputable, as-you-say scientific fact, don't really don't know anything at all.
Science presents no threat to your beliefs (or policies) such that you must amend them or vacate them entirely.
And what a racecourse of anti-intellectualism that set this country upon.
Like dominoes on a prepared track, the things we thought we knew were suddenly once more just unevolved masses in the Great Unknown: abstinence education might still work; a strategic missile-defense system might still work; Social Darwinists might yet be deserving of our thanks (were any of them still alive to receive it) in postulating that the poor are poor because the poor are lazy; global warming might be no more than the myth we secretly had hoped it to be; the roulette-wheel of the stock market might yet be the most sound frame upon which to weave our nation's civic safety net; the saturation of legally-sold guns into suburbia might yet make these bedroom communities safer, rather than more treacherous through random acts of passion, confusion, accident, unchecked impulse; holy wars between the great religions might yet be more holy than all other wars combined, less fraught with evil deeds and evil consequences; juveniles might yet defy a generation of psychiatrists and prove themselves as morally developed as men and women thirty years their senior; corporations might yet be such superlative stewards of the public trust that they, and not the humans who populate them, will ever remain most deserving of generous tax treatment; journalism might be merely an art, not a profession, and nothing one could quantify, anyway, with standards, or credentials, or bona fides, or curricula vitae, or degrees, or experience, or concentric circles of objectivity mapped upon a foundational, bedrock belief in integrity.
All in all, life in America became Something It Had Not Been.
A Death to Excellence.
A Death to Experience.
But more than that, too:
The Death of Knowledge.
The Death of Wisdom.
The Death of Fact.
The Death of Proof.
The Death of Distinctions.
The Death of Science.
The Death of Reason.
On the radio and on cable news, non-lawyers instructed lawyers in the law; non-scientists questioned the credentials and conclusions of scientists; disc jockeys declaimed on elementary school education; privately-schooled, well-heeled politicians expressed their accumulated wisdom on the subjects of drug addiction, homelessness, alcoholism, urban education, child abuse, clinical depression, carpal-tunnel syndrome, sleep apnea, insomnia, and gang violence.
The Great Wheel turned, and Today was (and is) manifestly Not Yesterday.
What matters, Today, is not so much being right--is not, in fact, getting it right--but getting it into the public consciousness with the most volume, the earliest, the most-often, with the most vitriol, a biting wit, an acerbic tongue, a knowing glance, a honeyed voice, a terrorizing bit of "oppo," a smear, a grimace, a smirk, an act.
The prize for Drama and the prize for Accuracy are one and the same.
Say it well and you may as well have said it right.
Or, failing that, you could simply say it so often--have such a constant and unflappable stock of faith in your own rectitude--it could wear the advance of grim reality to a nub.
Oh, faith!
Faith: nothing to be ashamed of, nothing to fear, nothing to merely abide or tolerate, nothing to chastise or belittle. Faith, that is, which is coupled with a catholic (small "c") commitment to the eternal steadfastness of principle.
Did we hear, during the last presidential election, that one candidate, a Catholic, should not receive the communion because he favored the right of a woman to choose (or not choose) to have an abortion? Because he allowed that civil unions for homosexuals might not be so destructive, after all, to any reasonable measure of the nation's overall health?
Yet did we hear, simultaneously, an across-the-board damning of those who deny, or ignore, or flaunt, or chide, or denigrate the Pope's proscription on governments putting humans to death?
Were all those who called for the excommunication of U.S. Senator John F. Kerry categorical opponents (in both word and deed) of pre-martial sex, extra-martial sex, birth control, condoms, twice-a-year confessions, infrequent church attendance, sparse charitable giving, castigating of the poor and the suffering, and the use of the Lord's name in vain?
What kind of religion, a self-delineated, connect-the-dots religion? What real demand, on the rest of us, that we respect or cherish that religion in public or in private, when it has not the decency or the strength of will to respect and cherish its own immutable prescriptions?
If a man should claim he is right with God, but is at the same time more right with the Corporation than his Brother, what Man of God is he?
If a man should claim he believes in salvation, but seeks it neither through good works for others nor even good thoughts about the frailty of himself and of others, what sort of half-pipe into Heaven has he made for himself?
How does Team Bush, led by George W. Bush, the reification of fifteen years of a right honorable "Christian" politics, justify more time and money spent on keeping the Ten Commandments in our courthouses than keeping handguns out of the hands of our children? More time and money spent policing a television documentary on Ronald Reagan than policing corporate crime? More time and money spent bringing faith into drug treatment than bringing clinically-confirmed drug addicts to treatment rather than prison in the first instance? More time and money spent on keeping one adult male penis from one adult male anus, when the two are willingly and lovingly joined, than keeping children safe from cigarettes, or women safe from harassment at work, or minorities safe from discrimination in hiring, or workers safe from preventable workplace injury and death, or homeowners safe from asbestos, or American Muslims safe from violations of their civil liberties, or civilians under the thumb of tyrannies safe from being no more than the collateral damage of our militaristic attentions, or the generations of mankind which have not yet been born safe from the poisoned water, decimated atmosphere, chronic flooding, and Hell-formed weather patterns of a nearly-here hyper-industrial future?
The Death of Religion is the Death of Metaphor.
It is the beginning of an Era in which the Bible is read like a menu, not a morality play.
Where the psalms wash over the faithful like the instruction manual for a washer and dryer, not as a universal tale in which the privileging of one value over another--charity over greed, peace over hatred, empathy over seclusion--is more than merely academic, more than something the Israelites sanctimoniously rammed up the asses of the Moabites all those thousands and thousands of years ago.
Neo-conservatism does not intend, nor hope for, nor work toward God moving in the hearts of men.
It intends, rather, to appropriate, for its own ends, the profound electricity of millions of hearts moving toward God.
It favors not those who are religious, but those who are seeking a Religion. And why not neo-conservatism for an idol? Why not Republicanism? Why not the Grand Old Party? Why not the elephant over the donkey? Why not dance around the golden pachyderm and spurn the threadbare burro?
Isn't it enough to simply believe?
Isn't that what we all want, to believe in something so hopelessly our hopelessness almost smells and walks and moves within us like hope?
But what is that, anyway?
The Death of Hope.
The Death of Spirit Coupled With Reason.
The Death of the Spirit Which Seeks to Know More Than That Which It Fears.
The Death of Wisdom.
Does it matter what a single man, call him a reporter, call him an activist, call him a whore, call him a plant, call him a scoundrel, does in the privacy of his apartment or hotel or motel or crawlspace or outhouse or townhouse or cubby-hole or watering hole?
No.
What matters is that a man who was not who he said he was, who did not believe in the standards he claimed to meet, who did not earn what he had, who did not aspire to anything more than what he felt as-he-was, who did not deserve the trust of his government or the public or the institutions he fraudulently laid claim to respect, who did not face any reckoning with the truth so much as an insistent handshake with the darkness--who, that is, worked not to enlighten, but to deceive the world and the cities and the spaces and the rooms he moved in--was somehow someone we could not distinguish from his betters.
Perhaps, said the White House, this man was every bit as deserving as anyone else to come here. Or perhaps he wasn't. Look, there--Helen Thomas. And there--Les Kinsolving. What we do we mean by that? Oh, nothing. Or something.
Perhaps, said the White House Press Office, we did everything we could to screen Gannon before we let him in. Or perhaps we didn't. Or perhaps we won't say.
Perhaps, said the White House press corps, we ought not say whether he was a journalist or not. Or perhaps we just can't tell anymore. Or perhaps we can but won't. Or perhaps we won't, for no reason other than that we haven't. Or perhaps someday we will. Or perhaps we never will.
Perhaps, said the Old Media, this is a story. We don't know, we'll have to wait to find out. What are we waiting for? To find out. We'll find out, we think, if we wait. This just might be a story. This might be nothing.
Perhaps, said the New Media, this is a story about a prostitute. Or hypocrisy. Or Karl Rove. Or oil interests in Iran. Or Karl Rove. Or something big, we mean big. What precisely? We don't know. We haven't had time to catch our breath. We haven't had time to decide. But it must be big.
Perhaps, said America, moral relativism means something. Perhaps we hate it. Perhaps we don't. Perhaps we hate it here but despise it abroad. Or vice versa. Perhaps this is a slippery slope. Perhaps we'll ride it out and see what happens. Perhaps it's nothing. Maybe it's a sign of the times. Or maybe it's a sign of the future. It's not my meat and potatoes. It's not in my best interest. It could hurt my Party. It could hurt my country. It hurts. I know what I believe. I believe what I believe.
And I believe this is a sign.
This is a sign.
This is something big.
I'm not going to wait anymore.
I need to know.
This is something big.
posted by News Editor at 3/3/2005 08:13:00 AM
Thursday, March 03, 2005
What Jeff Gannon Means to You, and What Gannongate Means to the Future of America
An ADVOCATE EDITORIAL
If a man is imbued with even a modicum of inquisitiveness, there will come a point in his workaday march of weeks and years in which he demands answers to all the minute yet terrifically important questions: How does a faucet work? Why does an engine start when it turns over? What is an annuity? When is it financially beneficial to me and my family to cancel the collision insurance on the car?
Nor is this inclination to question, and this expectation of answer, merely a phenomenon of the aged or middle-aged. Children, too, as writers across the generations have famously written, wonder about for answers to their most pressing questions at least as much if not more than their elders: Why the tides? Why the sunrise in the east? Why frogs? Why fireflies?
Liberalism calls out to our inquisitive nature, both the agile brand of curiosity we develop in childhood, and the heavy-set elephant of doubt we seem to garage in our later years: the will to know, the drive to discover, the imperative to get it right. It is no less central a tenet of our humanity than is our tendency to be fallible, to be incredulous, to be base, to be something less than sincere about who we are and what we want from those we love.
Conservatism, at one time, may have done much the same for our baser, yet no less deeply-held and deeply-felt instincts: the urge against unbridled advance; the sweetness of sentiment; the nostalgia for never-was or never-again.
There is, indeed, something to be said for the human race not getting ahead of itself, for ensuring our grasp keeps pace with our reach--every bit as much as there is something to be said for advancing the causes of justice and knowledge with no more trepidation or delay than the human spirit must, by its own intemperate nature, from time to time allow.
Modern conservatism--which would largely, to the ear of true conservatives like Theodore Roosevelt, sound a lot like that shrieking bastard-child, "neo-conservatism"--has in the last forty years come to root itself in two opposing yet oddly harmonious principles: the death of reason and the death of religion. Only where science fails, and the dynamic, almost cellular movement of God in the hearts of men flags, can the Golden Age of Men encroach.
Strip malls.
Social security privatization. Fast food. Denuding the wilderness.
Industrialization without accountability.
Dog eat dog eat dog eat its own tail.
Time was when we knew the earth's atmosphere was damaged. We knew global temperatures were rising at an alarming pace, several degrees warmer on average, this year, than seventy years ago. We knew not because someone simply told us it was so, but because someone had proven it was so, and the personal courage that demonstrative process revealed to us--someone believing in something so much that getting it right through proofs and science could actually matter--emboldened and deepened our sense of knowledge.
That is, we knew what we knew not merely because we knew it, but because we knew it demonstrably and palpably true.
True not simply because we had some small faith in the idea of it being true, or just a child's elusive desire for that, but because we had the fortitude and wherewithal to bring an idea to bear--to light, to truth, to understanding--through both the laws of physics and the laws of men.
The scientific method. Peer review. Publication. Dissemination.
Lecture halls. Question and answer sessions. Conventions.
Conferences. Credentialing of scientists and analysts.
The Academy. Graduate students. Dissertations.
Dilemma, query, thesis, diagnosis, resolution, prognosis, logic, rationality, conclusion.
The Bush Administration, in practiced and professional form, took this bright splay of human ingenuity, this interplay between the scientific community and the lay community--man's supposition, made in faith, coupled with man's integrity, in seeking proof--and snuffed it out right quick.
Suddenly we were told that science was at odds with itself, it did not know what it had purported to know, it could no longer tell what it had purportedly already told in lectures, in studies, in publications, in presentations, in charts, in data, in volumes and volumes of accumulated wisdom.
The horse was put back in the barn.
The waters reversed course and flowed back under the bridge.
The ship retreated to its dock.
Team Bush had found a scientist or two, the renegades and rogues and used car salesmen of their profession, to say those things neo-conservative Team Bush wanted or needed so desperately to hear: we (said the renegades and rogues) the gathered purveyors of formerly indisputable, as-you-say scientific fact, don't really don't know anything at all.
Science presents no threat to your beliefs (or policies) such that you must amend them or vacate them entirely.
And what a racecourse of anti-intellectualism that set this country upon.
Like dominoes on a prepared track, the things we thought we knew were suddenly once more just unevolved masses in the Great Unknown: abstinence education might still work; a strategic missile-defense system might still work; Social Darwinists might yet be deserving of our thanks (were any of them still alive to receive it) in postulating that the poor are poor because the poor are lazy; global warming might be no more than the myth we secretly had hoped it to be; the roulette-wheel of the stock market might yet be the most sound frame upon which to weave our nation's civic safety net; the saturation of legally-sold guns into suburbia might yet make these bedroom communities safer, rather than more treacherous through random acts of passion, confusion, accident, unchecked impulse; holy wars between the great religions might yet be more holy than all other wars combined, less fraught with evil deeds and evil consequences; juveniles might yet defy a generation of psychiatrists and prove themselves as morally developed as men and women thirty years their senior; corporations might yet be such superlative stewards of the public trust that they, and not the humans who populate them, will ever remain most deserving of generous tax treatment; journalism might be merely an art, not a profession, and nothing one could quantify, anyway, with standards, or credentials, or bona fides, or curricula vitae, or degrees, or experience, or concentric circles of objectivity mapped upon a foundational, bedrock belief in integrity.
All in all, life in America became Something It Had Not Been.
A Death to Excellence.
A Death to Experience.
But more than that, too:
The Death of Knowledge.
The Death of Wisdom.
The Death of Fact.
The Death of Proof.
The Death of Distinctions.
The Death of Science.
The Death of Reason.
On the radio and on cable news, non-lawyers instructed lawyers in the law; non-scientists questioned the credentials and conclusions of scientists; disc jockeys declaimed on elementary school education; privately-schooled, well-heeled politicians expressed their accumulated wisdom on the subjects of drug addiction, homelessness, alcoholism, urban education, child abuse, clinical depression, carpal-tunnel syndrome, sleep apnea, insomnia, and gang violence.
The Great Wheel turned, and Today was (and is) manifestly Not Yesterday.
What matters, Today, is not so much being right--is not, in fact, getting it right--but getting it into the public consciousness with the most volume, the earliest, the most-often, with the most vitriol, a biting wit, an acerbic tongue, a knowing glance, a honeyed voice, a terrorizing bit of "oppo," a smear, a grimace, a smirk, an act.
The prize for Drama and the prize for Accuracy are one and the same.
Say it well and you may as well have said it right.
Or, failing that, you could simply say it so often--have such a constant and unflappable stock of faith in your own rectitude--it could wear the advance of grim reality to a nub.
Oh, faith!
Faith: nothing to be ashamed of, nothing to fear, nothing to merely abide or tolerate, nothing to chastise or belittle. Faith, that is, which is coupled with a catholic (small "c") commitment to the eternal steadfastness of principle.
Did we hear, during the last presidential election, that one candidate, a Catholic, should not receive the communion because he favored the right of a woman to choose (or not choose) to have an abortion? Because he allowed that civil unions for homosexuals might not be so destructive, after all, to any reasonable measure of the nation's overall health?
Yet did we hear, simultaneously, an across-the-board damning of those who deny, or ignore, or flaunt, or chide, or denigrate the Pope's proscription on governments putting humans to death?
Were all those who called for the excommunication of U.S. Senator John F. Kerry categorical opponents (in both word and deed) of pre-martial sex, extra-martial sex, birth control, condoms, twice-a-year confessions, infrequent church attendance, sparse charitable giving, castigating of the poor and the suffering, and the use of the Lord's name in vain?
What kind of religion, a self-delineated, connect-the-dots religion? What real demand, on the rest of us, that we respect or cherish that religion in public or in private, when it has not the decency or the strength of will to respect and cherish its own immutable prescriptions?
If a man should claim he is right with God, but is at the same time more right with the Corporation than his Brother, what Man of God is he?
If a man should claim he believes in salvation, but seeks it neither through good works for others nor even good thoughts about the frailty of himself and of others, what sort of half-pipe into Heaven has he made for himself?
How does Team Bush, led by George W. Bush, the reification of fifteen years of a right honorable "Christian" politics, justify more time and money spent on keeping the Ten Commandments in our courthouses than keeping handguns out of the hands of our children? More time and money spent policing a television documentary on Ronald Reagan than policing corporate crime? More time and money spent bringing faith into drug treatment than bringing clinically-confirmed drug addicts to treatment rather than prison in the first instance? More time and money spent on keeping one adult male penis from one adult male anus, when the two are willingly and lovingly joined, than keeping children safe from cigarettes, or women safe from harassment at work, or minorities safe from discrimination in hiring, or workers safe from preventable workplace injury and death, or homeowners safe from asbestos, or American Muslims safe from violations of their civil liberties, or civilians under the thumb of tyrannies safe from being no more than the collateral damage of our militaristic attentions, or the generations of mankind which have not yet been born safe from the poisoned water, decimated atmosphere, chronic flooding, and Hell-formed weather patterns of a nearly-here hyper-industrial future?
The Death of Religion is the Death of Metaphor.
It is the beginning of an Era in which the Bible is read like a menu, not a morality play.
Where the psalms wash over the faithful like the instruction manual for a washer and dryer, not as a universal tale in which the privileging of one value over another--charity over greed, peace over hatred, empathy over seclusion--is more than merely academic, more than something the Israelites sanctimoniously rammed up the asses of the Moabites all those thousands and thousands of years ago.
Neo-conservatism does not intend, nor hope for, nor work toward God moving in the hearts of men.
It intends, rather, to appropriate, for its own ends, the profound electricity of millions of hearts moving toward God.
It favors not those who are religious, but those who are seeking a Religion. And why not neo-conservatism for an idol? Why not Republicanism? Why not the Grand Old Party? Why not the elephant over the donkey? Why not dance around the golden pachyderm and spurn the threadbare burro?
Isn't it enough to simply believe?
Isn't that what we all want, to believe in something so hopelessly our hopelessness almost smells and walks and moves within us like hope?
But what is that, anyway?
The Death of Hope.
The Death of Spirit Coupled With Reason.
The Death of the Spirit Which Seeks to Know More Than That Which It Fears.
The Death of Wisdom.
Does it matter what a single man, call him a reporter, call him an activist, call him a whore, call him a plant, call him a scoundrel, does in the privacy of his apartment or hotel or motel or crawlspace or outhouse or townhouse or cubby-hole or watering hole?
No.
What matters is that a man who was not who he said he was, who did not believe in the standards he claimed to meet, who did not earn what he had, who did not aspire to anything more than what he felt as-he-was, who did not deserve the trust of his government or the public or the institutions he fraudulently laid claim to respect, who did not face any reckoning with the truth so much as an insistent handshake with the darkness--who, that is, worked not to enlighten, but to deceive the world and the cities and the spaces and the rooms he moved in--was somehow someone we could not distinguish from his betters.
Perhaps, said the White House, this man was every bit as deserving as anyone else to come here. Or perhaps he wasn't. Look, there--Helen Thomas. And there--Les Kinsolving. What we do we mean by that? Oh, nothing. Or something.
Perhaps, said the White House Press Office, we did everything we could to screen Gannon before we let him in. Or perhaps we didn't. Or perhaps we won't say.
Perhaps, said the White House press corps, we ought not say whether he was a journalist or not. Or perhaps we just can't tell anymore. Or perhaps we can but won't. Or perhaps we won't, for no reason other than that we haven't. Or perhaps someday we will. Or perhaps we never will.
Perhaps, said the Old Media, this is a story. We don't know, we'll have to wait to find out. What are we waiting for? To find out. We'll find out, we think, if we wait. This just might be a story. This might be nothing.
Perhaps, said the New Media, this is a story about a prostitute. Or hypocrisy. Or Karl Rove. Or oil interests in Iran. Or Karl Rove. Or something big, we mean big. What precisely? We don't know. We haven't had time to catch our breath. We haven't had time to decide. But it must be big.
Perhaps, said America, moral relativism means something. Perhaps we hate it. Perhaps we don't. Perhaps we hate it here but despise it abroad. Or vice versa. Perhaps this is a slippery slope. Perhaps we'll ride it out and see what happens. Perhaps it's nothing. Maybe it's a sign of the times. Or maybe it's a sign of the future. It's not my meat and potatoes. It's not in my best interest. It could hurt my Party. It could hurt my country. It hurts. I know what I believe. I believe what I believe.
And I believe this is a sign.
This is a sign.
This is something big.
I'm not going to wait anymore.
I need to know.
This is something big.
posted by News Editor at 3/3/2005 08:13:00 AM
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